60 LAWS OF NOMENCLATURE. 



is true when the sense of the parenthesis is perfectly under- 

 stood, and when it is copied or uttered textuallytj but then 

 there are ellipses and forced abbreviations^ alluded to above 

 by M. Questier. As the parentheses cannot be put entire 

 into indexes, as they cannot be employed in conversation, 

 nor in the text of discussions on species, they are omitted. 

 There is a proof of this in the index of the ' Flora Orien- 

 talis ' of M. Boissier, where we find Matthiola tristis, L. ; 

 Gypsofhila acerosa, Boiss. ; TiMiica proKfera, L., etc. ; al- 

 though Linnaeus never made a Matthiola tristis, nor a Tunica 

 prolifera ; nor M. Boissier a Gypsophila acerosa. So many 

 inaccuracies, or perhaps injustices ! For who can affirm that 

 Linnaeus would have approved of the genera Matthiola and 

 Tunica, or that acknowledging the genera to be good, he 

 would have referred there the above-named species ? 



If we hold, above all, to being just, we ought to do a great 

 deal more than is proposed. We ought not to be looking 

 out for the author who first named a genus or a species, or 

 who first referred a species to a genus, but for the one who 

 has given the best description of the genus or of the species, 

 who has best made their affinities known, etc. When a bo- 

 tanist creates a perfectly natural genus on characters that 

 had been before overlooked, it is to him that ought by right 

 to be attributed all the species that are annexed to the 

 genus at a later period, he having been the intelligent cause 

 of what was done after him. Tell a scholar that such a 

 plant is called grata, what does that teach him ? Nothing. 

 Tell him that it belongs to the genus Clematis ; that will be 

 going a great way, as he may then easily find the species in 

 books, and he may perhaps know already to what Order the 

 genus belongs. Tracing a variety to a species is oftentimes a 

 work of more merit than was the description of the variety 

 by the first who spoke of it. If merit is the chief point, it 

 must be made out everywhere and in every case ; and this 

 being acknowledged once for all, then it would be time 

 enough that the name of the author might be cited, even 

 if it were necessary to turn as far back as Theophrastus ; and 

 if it happened that some one else afterwards rendered still 



