50 Frederic E. Clements 



(4) The last term of a generic name should be a noun. Al- 

 though such compounds usually become adjectives in Greek, the 

 confusion which thus arises from alternative endings or gender 

 terminations can only be avoided by restricting such compounds 

 to the form and gender of the noun of the last term, i. e., the last 

 term of a compound should always remain unchanged. 



(5) Verbals should be invariably avoided in compounding 

 nouns and adjectives, i. e., in all the composition found in nomen- 

 clature. A compound of identical or similar meaning can al- 

 ways be secured by employing a noun or adjective, and the use 

 of verbal stems, in many ways peculiar, should be left to the 

 philologist. 



(6) The repeated use of different suffixes in connection with 

 the same generic compound, or indeed with the same last term, 

 should be carefully avoided. 



(7) The alternative termination of Latin compound adjectives 

 in -us and -is, though hardly productive of any real difficult)', 

 might well be avoided for the sake of the biologist who does not 

 understand that these are merely alternative endings. Saint- 

 Lager 1 has suggested that terminations in -us be assimilated to 

 -is, and this suggestion might well be carried out, although the 

 -us termination has the slight advantage of indicating gender 

 somewhat more definitely. 



ACCENT 



The accent of all Greek and Latin derivatives in science is 

 determined by the accentuation of Latin, since all Greek words 

 after transliteration are governed, of course, by the usual rules 

 of accent for Latin words. These are as follows : 



(1) The ultimate is never accented. 



(2) In words of two or more syllables the accent is on the 

 penult when this is long ; when the penult is short, the antepenult 

 is accented. 



GENDER 



The gender of a name is the gender of the last term in its 

 proper language, whether the termination conform or not. The 



1 Saint-Lager. Chapitre de Grammaire a 1'usage des botanistes. 1892. 

 370 



