468 BOTANICAL WORK OF THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION. 



often occurs that new genera are seen to have been too hastily founded 

 on insufficient grounds, and must therefore be merged in others. This 

 may involve the creation of a large number of new names, the old ones 

 becoming henceforth a burden to literature as synonyms. It is usual 

 in such cases to retain the specific portion of the original name, if 

 possible. If it is, however, already preoccupied in the genus to which 

 the transference is made, a new one must be devised. Many modern 

 systematists have, however, set up the doctrine that a specific epithet 

 once given is indelible, and whatever the taxonomic wanderings of the 

 organism to which it was once assigned, it must always accompany it. 

 This, however, would not have met with much sympathy from Linnaeus, 

 who attached no importance to the specific epithet at all: "Nomen spe- 

 cificum sine generico est quasi pistillum sine campana." (Phil., 219.) 

 Linnaeus always had a solid reason for everything he did or said, and 

 it is worth while considering in this case what it was. 



Before his time the practice of associating plants in genera had 

 made some progress in the hands of Tournefort and others, but spe- 

 cific names were still cumbrous and practically unusable. Genera 

 were often distinguished by a single word; and it was the great reform 

 accomplished by Linnaeus to adopt the binominal principle for species. 

 But there is this difference : Generic names are unique, and must not 

 be applied to more than one distinct group. Specific names might 

 have been constituted on the same basis; the specific name in that 

 case would then have never been used to designate more than one 

 plant, and would have been sufficient to indicate it. We should have 

 lost, it is true, the useful information which we get from our present 

 practice in learning the genus to which the species belongs; but theo- 

 retically a nomenclature could have been established on the one-name 

 principle. The thing, however, is impossible now, even if it were 

 desirable. A specific epithet like vulgaris may belong to hundreds of 

 different species belonging to as many different genera, and taken 

 alone is meaningless. A Linnaean name, then, though it consists of 

 two parts, must be treated as a whole. "Nomen omne plantarum 

 constabit nomine generico et specifico." (Phil., 212.) A fragment can 

 have no vitality of its own. Consequently, if superseded, it may be 

 replaced by another which may be perfectly independent. 1 



It constantly happens that the same species is named and described 

 by more than one writer, or different views are taken of specific differ- 

 ences by various writers ; the species of one are therefore "lumped" 

 by another. In such cases, where there is a choice of names, it is 



'As Alphonse de Candolle points out in a letter published in the Bull, de la Soc. 

 bot. de France (XXXIX), (i the real merit of Linnaeus has been to combine, for aU 

 plants, the generic name with the specific epithet." It is important to remember 

 that in a logical sense the "name" of a species consists, as Linnaeus himself insisted, 

 in the combination, not in the specific epithet, which is a mere fragment of the 

 name and meaningless when taken by itself. 



