GENERAL INFORMATION 109 



names but applied them, not as anciently used, but 

 to a different group. Bromus to the Greeks was the 

 oat, but Linnaeus used it for the brome-grasses; 

 Zizanion was the tares (supposed to be Lolium 

 temulentum) sown by the enemy among the wheat, 

 in the parable of Scripture, but Linnaeus used the 

 feminine form of the word for our wild rice. On the 

 whole, however, botanical names are more or less 

 descriptive, and it is helpful as well as interesting to 

 be mindful of their meaning, especially of the names 

 of species. Any plant with the name "asper" or 

 "scaber" will be rough in some part; "pubescens" 

 will be hairy; "alba" will have white flowers or bark 

 probably, and "rubra" red. The name Bromus 

 secalinus implies that the species was a weed in the 

 rye (Secale) fields of Europe, as it is in our wheat 

 fields. Holcus halepensis was known in the early 

 ages from Aleppo (Haleb) in Syria, and Phalaris 

 canariensis from the Canary Islands. 



The present system of botanical nomenclature 

 dates from 1753, when Linnaeus's Species Plantarum 

 was published, using binomials (names of two words) 

 for all the species. Before this, plants were given 

 phrase names, more or less descriptive, such as 

 "Panicum with lax drooping panicle, the sheaths of 

 the leaves pubescent," for proso millet {Panicum 

 miliaceum) or "Grass with a very long spike, like 

 cat-tail," for timothy. These phrase names were 

 in Latin, of course. Linnaeus's binomial plan so 

 simplified the hitherto cumbersome system that 



