58 



REVISIO GENERUM PLANTAfctfM VASCULARIUM. 



volumes of which were issued before 1751, and the last volume, 

 which came out in 1755, was uniform with its predecessors. It is 

 needless to argue this at any length ; the folly, to use no harsher 

 term, of raking up names given by Moehring, or by Siegesbeck in 

 1736, before Linnaeus had had an opportunity to fully explain his 

 system, or even to supply the requisite details, needs no enforcing ; 

 the case of Siegesbeck is particularly gross, he being Linnseus's 

 most virulent opponent. Probably no fewer than four-fifths of the 

 names here proposed must fall, still-born, from this defiant dis- 

 regard of accepted usage. Linnaeus did not establish his reforms 

 at a single stroke ; on the contrary, he had a very hard battle to 

 fight before he attained his supremacy. The first edition of the 

 Sy sterna was the outline sketch only, of which some details were 

 filled in when the Genera appeared in 1737, and was successively 

 worked upon, until, in 1753, the crown was set upon the labour 

 of more than twenty years by the issue of the Species Plantarum ; 

 then, for the first time, it is possible to look upon the whole 

 edifice, complete so far as the then state of botany extended. 

 Still further, Linnaeus, as the inventor of the received nomen- 

 clature, had a perfectly free hand, and it is monstrous to think 

 of imposing upon him those restrictions which have become 

 necessary since his time. Many genera, such as Mthusa and 

 Centaurea, took their modern form, or were first introduced, in 

 the Species Plantarum, and it would be the merest pedantry to urge 

 that they should be written Ethusa and Centaiuia, because that was 

 their first guise ; and they have never, so far as I know, ever had 

 any specific names attached to them. Unfortunately, with some 

 folk, that seems to be all the better reason for striking out a new 

 path ; we shall see plenty of examples of this later on. 



Some of the changes which were introduced by Linnaeus, fre- 

 quently in despite of his own canons, cannot be defended ; thus, 

 Bergius published his Littorella juncea in the Stockholm Handlingar 

 in 1768, and when Linnaeus took up that genus and species in his 

 Mantissa he called it L. laciistris ; it is therefore not surprising that 

 so many botanists have gone back to the earlier and perfectly 

 appropriate name. 



It is now only fair that we should turn to the book itself to see 

 how the author's crochets have taken shape. Here are a few pro- 

 posed changes, which assuredly would not shorten citations : 



Pterospermadendron for Pterosper- Scolymocephalus for Protea. 



mum - Geraniospermum „ Pelargonium. 



Myrtoleucodendron for Melaleuca. 



These seem bad enough, but worse follow : 



Arundarbor for Bambasa. Palmijuncus for Calamus. 



Cacalia „ Vernonia. Sorghum „ Andropogon. 



Callista ,, Dendrobium. Tragacantha ,, Astragalus. 



The last is the most flagrant instance of the author's whims. In 

 the first edition of the Systema, Linnaeus printed the names tb"° • 

 under Diadelphia, Decandra, and subdivision " $. Fr. Biloculari 



Biserrula. Pelecinus T. Tragacantha. Glycia. Astragalus T. 



