BOTANICAL NOMENCLATURE. 367 



Article 28 of the code, which is reprinted without altera- 

 tion or comment, consists of a series of recommendations of 

 points to be attended to in the construction of generic names. 

 As such names are to be " in Latin," it would have been well 

 to recommend that in their formation from the Greek, from 

 which most of them are nowadays drawn, the principles of 

 Latin prosody should not be wholly ignored. Such names as 

 Trichocliidus and Ancistrocladus would have been euphonious 

 as Trichocladia and Ancistrocladia, and very little longer. 

 Acanthopanax, Didymopanax, Dimorphochlamys, Trigono- 

 chlamys, Aulacocalyx, Pellacalyx, Microcharis, and tbe like, 

 are harder to pronounce than the makers probably thought ; 

 and so of many others. 



One of the actual recommendations is " Eviter les noms ad- 

 jectifs." This in Weddell's version is translated, "To avoid 

 adjective nouns:" doubtless a wrong translation. Adjective 

 nouns we take to be substantives which are directly formed 

 from adjectives. Not many such are likely to be made for 

 genera ; but if such good ones can be constructed as those we 

 already have in Nigella, Amarella, Flaveria, Chlora, Rubia, 

 Leucas, and Hyptis, they will not be objected to. Clearly 

 the recommendation is to avoid adjective names for genera. 

 That may be done for the future, but has not been done in 

 the past. They are contrary to the rule of Linnaeus, but not 

 to his practice. Not to refer again to Gloriosa, Mirabilis, and 

 Impatiens, at least two score of obviously adjective names for 

 genera may be counted in the first edition of the " Genera 

 Plantarum," — such as Arenaria, Stellaria, Utricularia, Den- 

 taria, Asperula, Angelica, Trientalis, Pedicularis, Digitalis, 

 and from the Greek such as Polycarpon. Amphicarpum and 

 Mitracarpum are recent names of this kind. To conform the 

 rule to the fact it were better to state that : generic names are 

 either substantives or adjectives which may be used as sub- 

 stantives, the latter mostly feminine in gender. Angelica is 

 understood to be Planta Angelica, Sanguinaria, Planta san- 

 gidnaria, etc. 



It is recommended " to avoid making choice of names used 

 in zoology." But it has become nearly impossible to follow 

 this advice, nor is it now thought to be important. 



