BOTANICAL NOMENCLATURE. 363 



point of departure for the law of priority in botany. The 

 names of the two great classes, Monocotyledones and Dicoty- 

 ledones, are of Ray in 1703, who scientifically distinguished 

 and named them. The counterpart, Acotyledones, is of Jus- 

 sieu (1789), and to all three names our author would apply 

 the law of priority. That the name Acotyledones fails to 

 express the true character is a small objection. This is only 

 an example of the disadvantage of significant names, which 

 may lose aptness in the advance of knowledge. Far better 

 are such names as Aves, Pisces, Vermes, etc., which time and 

 discovery can never falsify. Cryptogamia as the name of a 

 class (which for meaning is hardly so good as Acotyledones) 

 was introduced by Linnaeus in 1735, and has maintained its 

 place.i The counterpart, Phauerogamia (or Phsenogamia), 

 is not of Linnaeus, but much later. Natural Families or 

 Orders date from Jussieu's " Genera Plantarum," in 1789 ; 

 Cohorts and Tribes, from A. P. De CandoUe's " Systema," 

 1818. Subgenera begin with R. Brown, in 1810, according to 

 our author. There are a few instances (without the name) 

 in the " Prodromus Florae Novae Hollandiae." But it is in the 

 Oudney and Denham-Clapperton paper, in 1826 (p. 16), that 

 their use is discussed, and the mode of designating them in 

 citation by interpolation between generic and specific name 

 in parenthesis, is introduced. Species (as distinguished from 

 varieties) and the actual binomial nomenclature date from 

 1753, and the first edition of the " Species Plantarum." There 

 is substantial agreement among botanists as to this point of 

 departure ; and the fact that the specific phrase of earlier 

 authors is occasionally of a single substantive does not militate 

 against it. Galega vulgaris^ Lci'p'pa majoi\ and Trifolium 

 agrarium of the old herbalists were in good binomial form ; 

 but the adjectives are phrases, not specific names. 



Generic names bring in a question of interpretation and 

 usage. In his table De Candolle makes the point of departure 

 for priority, Linnaeus, '' Genera Plantarum," ed. 1, 1737. All 



1 On p. 58 De Candolle has collected nineteen synonyms of the name 

 Cryptogamia, all of later date, and specified the objections which may be 

 brought against each of them, besides that of want of priority. 



