306 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 54. 



as Hedera terrestris, a name which caused it to be thought of as 

 really a kind of ivy. Cordus proposes that botanists shall call it 

 by a new name ChamcEclema.^ Similarly what had always been 

 called Trifolium acetosum, or sour clover, seeing they really mistake 

 it for a kind of clover, Cordus proposes shall be known as Oxys.^ The 

 genus, by the way, was so known for two centuries after Cordus 

 had proposed it, and until Linnaeus without the shadow of a reason 

 for so doing, changed it to i^xalis. 



• In respect to the construction of new generic names Cordus 

 represents the most rigidly classic type of nomenclator in this, that 

 jhe creates no meaningless names. Every appellator of this kind 

 -that he makes is framed in allusion to some characteristic, either 

 organologic, or ecologic, or qualitative, of the type itself, and is there- 

 fore full of meaning. The nomenclature of genera in even the 

 remotest antiquity was not universally so ; for they had in ancient 

 times the genera Artemisia, Eupatorium, Euphorbia, Gentiana, 

 PcBonia, Valeriana, and several others which, like these, were 

 named in honor of eminent medical botanists. Not one, however, 

 of Cordus' many new genera is dedicated to any person whether 

 historical or mythical. Even Theophrastus, Nicander, Dioscorides, 

 and Pliny were not to be commemorated in generic nomenclature 

 until after the lapse of more than a century and a half from the date 

 of Cordus' death. 



As regards the principle of priority, it is to be observed that he 

 stands by it and contends for it only in the case of names that are 

 of great antiquity. For instance, he finds that the name Eupatorium 

 has been displaced from its ancient type so that the plant is every- 

 where in his time known under the name of Agrimonia. He will 

 enter into no compromise with this kind of error. While as he says, 

 " Almost all physicians and pharmacists of to-day call it /Igrtwonta, "^ 

 he declines to head his chapter with that appellation, and writes 

 Eupatorium instead, regardless of the convenience of the erring 

 multitude. It is taking boldly the ground that the scientific man 

 must be true to history in his plant naming; and that it belongs 

 to the doctors and druggists to correct their errors according to 

 the light of history. This is nothing less than the most tenacious 

 adherence to the principle of priority; the restoring of an ancient 

 name, where the whole concourse of those in a business way inter- 

 ested will be opposed to the restoration, and he knows it. 



' Hist. PI., p. 161. 



2 Ibid., p. 173. 



3 Ibid., p. 169. 



