120 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 54 



universal language of the educated. Theophrastus had been 

 translated into Latin for the convenience of those who had not 

 learned Greek; but still, as to botanical nomenclature Greek held 

 its prestige fully. When in the course of their herborizings the 

 botanists found plants in no wise answering to any descriptions in 

 the ancient books, and therefore adjudged new and nameless, 

 under the conditions then prevailing it would have been the most 

 natural thing in the world if all new plant names of the period had 

 been made in Latin ; and this indeed often happened, e. g., Pulicaria 

 and Fragaria, Brunfels (1531), Digitalis, Fuchs (1542), Sanicula, 

 Tragus (1552), Bidens, Cesalpino (1593); yet Latin names for new 

 genera are somewhat exceptional even for that period, Greek- 

 made names being commonly preferred. The reason was simply 

 this. The greater proportion of plant names then in use, even in 

 Latin botany, was Greek, and that by unbroken tradition from 

 the Greek father of all botany; and Greek-made names for new 

 types were more in harmony with the general tone of botanical 

 nomenclature than Latin names. Thus has it come to pass that 

 even down to our twentieth century the favorite etymology for 

 new generic names is Greek. Such very modem names as Cal- 

 liandra, Chimonanthus, Chionanthus, Chionophila, Chionogenes , 

 Epigcea, and hundreds like them, all very modern, attest the 

 perpetual influence of Theophrastus upon botanical nomenclature. 

 In botany as elsewhere the genus presupposes species. A genus 

 may consist of many species, of few, or of one only. Theophrastus 

 had very many monotypic genera, at least as they were then known. 

 The specific representative of a monotypic genus has with him but 

 one name, commonly a one-worded name; that is, the one species 

 constituting such genus lacks a specific name. It really has no 

 need of any. Where there is but one thing of a kind, there is never 

 in ordinary speech a second and qualifying name. If neither men 

 nor things existed but in monotypes, language would not need 

 adjectives, and there would be none. Had there been but one 

 race of men on the earth, the name of that race would have been 

 man simply, and the adjectives Caucasian, Mongolian, African, 

 etc., would not have existed. The Theophrastan nomenclature of 

 plants is as simply natural as can be imagined. Not only are 

 monotypic genera called by a single name; where the species are 

 known to be several, the type species of the genus — that is, that 

 which is most historic — is without a specific name, at least very 

 commonly, and only the others have each its specific adjective 

 superadded to the generic appellation. The situation may best 



