SOME LINNA‘AN TRIVIAL NAMES aly 
however; nor will they be found even hyphenated. A whole word 
has been arbitrarily suppressed, and we read only Cystopteris fragilis 
or Filix fragilis, Melilotus officinalis, Melilotus ttalica, Melilotus 
indica, etc. ‘The authors of our manuals, however, protest that 
they have labored to bring them in agreement with the codes, and 
they insist apparently seriously that they have adopted the earliest 
‘“ specific’? names instead of that specific name which was first 
combined with the correct generic name. 
As we have already intimated there is hardly the appearance 
even of consistency exhibited in such neglect. To illustrate the 
- point we may take the example of two species of ferns both taken 
from one Linnean genus. The Linnzan Asplenium Ruta muraria 
becomes in our books the hyphenated Asplenium Ruta-muraria, 
whereas Asplenium Adiantum nigrum appears simply as Asplentune 
nigrum, a whole word left out as in case of Cystopteris fragilis. It 
would seem not an easy matter on the part of our modern nomen- 
clators to decide whether the dropping of a whole word from the 
text is much a different thing after all from the mere insertion of a 
hyphen. ‘They are evidently not minded simply to end the forg- 
ing process with hyphens only. ‘That the instance occurs in one 
genus too is worthy of note! Again, in the same genus the Lin- 
nean Asplenium Trichomanes ramosum has either been dropped 
entirely or A. viride Hudson put in its place. 
The conclusions forced on us by the comparison of the Linnean 
names of the Species Plantarum with the versions of them as 
appearing in the manuals and recent literature of botany, is that no 
matter how strongly the modern nomenclators protest in word and 
writing to their following their codes and keeping intact the text 
of his works, they are actually changing his names as much if not 
more than the writers quoted in the accompanying list, while all 
the time pretending not to do so. It may be said of the older 
writers at least that they seemed more honest or candid about 
their alterations. They did not pretend to serve divided masters, 
for there had not as yet been any congresses or codes save the codes 
of reason. 
It is worthy of note that some of the followers of Linnzus 
imitated him in making ternary names. Bieberstein as late as 
1819* had them, and even made new ones such as TZyifolium 
Melilotus parviflorum, Trifolium Melilotus tauricum, Trifolium 
* Bieberstein Flora Taurica Caucasica, Vol. III, p. 506-7 (1819). 
