70 Frederic E. Clements 



ment can afford to stand sponsor for a hybrid name, when a 

 trifling expenditure of time will yield a word of pure birth. 



For the sake of clearness, hybrids may be divided into two 

 classes : ( I ) Greek-Latin hybrids, in which one element is Greek 

 and the other Latin; (2) vernacular hybrids, in which one ele- 

 ment is from a modern tongue, while the other is classical, usu- 

 ally Latin. Each class shows hybrids in which both terms are 

 independent words, and those in which one term is an affix. 

 There is no essential difference between these as hybrids, but 

 the distinction is an important one, because words of the second 

 group are rarely recognized as hybrids on account of the slight 

 familiarity of biologists with classical methods of derivation. 

 The matter presents indeed some difficulty for the philologist, 

 because of the similarity of cognate affixes in Greek and Latin, 

 and because of Greek affixes borrowed by Latin. On account of 

 the difficulty of detecting them, hybrids of this sort are becom- 

 ing more and more common. The raising of hybrid sectional 

 names in cv-, i/^vSo-, -(08775, -ella, -astrum, etc., to the rank of 

 generic names is contributing very largely to this result, as also 

 the endeavor to honor a biologist by attaching all the Latin suf- 

 fixes in turn to his name. 



There has been considerable discussion regarding the treat- 

 ment of such hybrids as pseudorepens and Eucarex. The con 

 tention is made that these words are not hybrids, since these 

 affixes were regularly used by Latin writers, but, as a matter of 

 fact, they are not found in classical Latin outside of borrowed 

 Greek words in which they are a proper affix. It has further 

 been urged that such words are scarcely hybrids, for the reason 

 that pseudorepens does not mean "false creeping," but merely 

 refers to a species of Agropyrum, which is not A. repens. Such 

 argument is mere sophistry, since every compound or derivative 

 which contains a Greek and Latin element, whether independent 

 word or affix, is a hybrid. The only possible exception is found 

 in those rare Greek words which have become so completely 

 domiciled in Latin that their origin is no longer felt. 



The correction of hybrids 1 is possible only when the word 



1 Since the above was written, three instances of a similar correction of 

 70 



