MERRILL: ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF TAXONOMY 51 



including the middle ages knew and utilized only a few hundred basic plant 

 species, botanical science and taxonomy was indeed a simple matter. In those 

 distant days a rough classification, as to major groups, as trees, shrubs, and 

 herbs sufficed. Species were designated by shorter or longer descriptive Greek 

 or Latin sentences. But even in these early days there was, here and there, the 

 beginnings of classification by obvious characters indicating varying degrees of 

 natural relationships. In the Europe of renaissance the pulse quickened. Up to 

 this time those who were at all concerned with plants and their utilization, 

 being scholastically minded, could think only in terms of the ancient Greek and 

 Latin masters. All attempted to refer their plants to those recognized and 

 named by the classical authors, particularly Dioscorides. In northern Europe, 

 with the invention of printing and the general advancement in learning, it 

 became evident that many of the species characteristic of this part of the con- 

 tinent were really diff'erent from those of the Mediterranean region. Once this 

 break came with classical traditions, progress was greatly accelerated, as evi- 

 denced by the masterful works of Fuchs, Brunfels, Bock, and others, for these 

 pioneers had returned to the actual study of plants as opposed to merely a study 

 of the classics. Following the epoch making discoveries of the pioneer Portu- 

 guese and Spanish navigators the small stream of botanical knowledge became 

 a flood. 



Still for the most part the cumbersome system of designating species by 

 descriptive sentences prevailed and no radical change was made in nomencla- 

 ture until 1753, when Linnaeus promulgated his very simple and very obvious 

 binomial system. I say "very simple and very obvious" because it was so simple 

 and so practicable that one constantly wonders why it was not developed as a 

 system some centuries earlier. The idea of the genus had taken root at an earlier 

 date, and following Linnaeus's innovation this radical departure in designating 

 plant species by a binomial, a generic and a specific name, quickly prevailed. 

 After all, in common everyday parlance the binomial system of designating 

 plants was widely used among the common people of many countries, but there 

 was a wide gulf between daily usage of the people and the learned world. Wit- 

 ness binomials in the common names of plants, such as white oak, red oak, 

 cork oak, burr oak, live oak, scrub oak, swamp oak, post oak, chestnut oak, 

 valley oak, holm oak, pin oak, water oak, willow oak ; stone pine, sugar pine, 

 white pine, red pine, yellow pine, nut pine, Scots pine, Austrian pine, black 

 pine, loblolly pine, jack pine, and digger pine. This system of common names 

 as binomials is not modern, but is one of the most ancient things in many 

 languages, this usage being very widespread in the world at large, and among 

 primitive as well as among culturally advanced peoples. 



But coupled with the Linnaean binomial system was his artificial system of 

 classification based essentiallv on the number of carpels and the number and 



