CONCERNING NOMENCLATURE. 207 
While the generic name‘ of a plant must necessarily 
be changed when it is transferred to another genus, 
there is no need of a change in the specific name unless 
the new genus should already possess a species of the 
same name. There cannot, of course, be two species of 
the same name in any genus. It has frequently hap- 
pened, however, that botanists in transferring species 
have assumed the right to make new specific names. 
These names some botanists would discard for the oldest 
specific names without regard to the circumstances 
under which they were given, but there is a large body 
of students who look upon a plant as not named until 
it is placed in the right genus and hold that the first 
correct combination of generic and specific names is the 
proper name for the plant no matter by what other 
specific names it has been known. The name of the 
botanist who made the correct combination is then 
written after it. This is essentially the system that has 
been adopted in the nomenclature of the Check-List 
following the Keys to the Species in this volume. 
When a plant originally described in one genus is 
transferred to another, it is the practice of many bota- 
ists to place in parenthesis after the specific name, the 
authority for that name, and to follow it with the name 
of the botanist who made the correct combination. 
Thus in the case of the rusty woodsia which is now 
cited as Woodsta Ilvensis (L.) R. Br., we are to under- 
stand that Linnzus gave the specific name //vensis to 
the plant, and that Robert Brown was the first to make 
the correct combination of generic and specific names, 
The fern collector, interested in learning the names of 
his plants, pays little attention to the Orders. He is 
concerned with genera and species. Almost at once he 
