BUBANI’S FLORA PRYENAEA . A5 
The genus Pinus, as Bubani sets it forth, perfectly illustrates 
his views in general as to the comprehensiveness of a genus; and 
it contains Abies, Picea, Cedrus and Larix as well as the true 
pines. The genus was so received by most botanists after Lin- 
naeus for a hundred years and more; but the genus is by name 
credited to Pliny; not that it had not been recognized as a genus, 
and its species much written about by Greek authors, and under 
the Greek generic name, long before Pliny’s time} but Bubani 
stands evidently by tbe principle—it is only simply common 
sense,—that in Latin botany Greek generic names do not displace 
Latin names, however much more ancient. 
This first page of the Flora furnishes us with one example 
of the authors methods in dealing with species; and it is so original, 
and so perfect an example of his way of presenting all species, that 
the reader of these comments will need to see, at least the most 
indicative and important first line, and here it is: 
Pinus Abies (Homer, Theophr., Virg., Plin.) Du Roi Obs. 
Bot... 39. 
And now, first of all, a word of explanation is called for in 
relation to Bubani’s parentheses. One who knows how, recently 
parenthetic author’s names have come into frequent use in sys- 
tematic botany may well be surprised that this man, belonging as 
he does to an older generation of men who scorned the use of 
them, should have employed them at all; but he makes much 
more use of them than any other author ever has done. But his 
parenthesis is not at all that of other people. It is peculiarly his 
own, and has its own purposes. While in recent books in which 
parenthesis appears freely, it has to do with nomenclature and 
nothing else, Bubani’s parentheses, on the contrary, have nothing 
to do with it. The uninstructed, on reading the line would be 
apt to say that this author credits the name Pinus Abies partly 
at least to Homer, Theophrastus, Virgil and Pliny, which would 
be utterly wide of the truth. Neither Homer nor Theophrastus 
ever heard of the name Pinus even, or of the word Abies; and 
neither Virgil nor Pliny ever dreamed of a name Pinus Abies, 
though both those men were as familiar with binary plant names 
and tree names as we are. Bubani’s meaning is simply that those 
authors whose names are printed parenthetically are they who 
wrote in their day important matter in relation to this kind of 
