144 



PHYTOGRAPHY. 



on the other enlarged beyond all bounds the size of botanical 

 "writings, and, as caprice rather than law ruled in this matter, 

 multiplied the sjnonymes of every plant to an endless 

 length. In the middle of the seventeenth century, indeed, 

 Joachim Young, an ingenious philosopher in Hamburgh, 

 first attempted to introduce order into this chaos, by giving 

 laws, founded on correct views, to the nomenclature ; but his 

 writings became known for the first time almost a century after 

 his death, (Joach. Yungii Opuscula hotanico-physica, Coburgi, 

 1747, 4to.) ; and the herculean labours of Caspar Bauhin, re- 

 specting the older synonymes (^Pinax Theatri botanici, Basil, 

 1671, 4to.), corrected and improved by Morison, {Praludia 

 botanica ; Hallucinationes C. Bauhinii in Pinace, Lond. 

 1669? 12mo.), continued till the eighteenth century to be the 

 only guiding clew in the labyrinth of botanical nomenclature. 



Linnaeus earned for himself immortal honour, by inventing 

 what he called Trivial Names, in addition to the Generic 

 Names which several earlier writers (Ray, Plumier, Tour- 

 nefort), had established according to correct principles. In 

 this way every Species of plant was now designated by only 

 two invariable names, which could be easily retained, and 

 by means of which the acquisition of the science must have 

 been much facilitated. 



To this nomenclature of Linnaeus, it has indeed been ob- 

 jected, not without reason, that it serves only for enabling 

 us to retain the name of a plant, without denoting its essen- 

 tial properties. Hence Haller, and others, proposed various 

 plans for expressing the characters of plants in their names. 

 But these attempts failed, and, at any rate, could lay no 

 claim to general approbation, because their object was less to 

 facilitate the study, than to express a preconceived meaning. 

 The Linnaean Nomenclature must ever endure, because, with 

 about a thousand trivial names, and from two to three thou- 

 sand and a half of generic names, we are able correctly to 

 designate more than flfty thousand different species of plants. 



