458 
PHYTOGRAPHY. 
BOOK IV. 
condemned by Linnaeus, of converting the names by which 
plants are knovv^n in countries called barbarous, into scientific 
generic names, by adding a Latin termination to them. The 
advantage of this practice to travellers is knov^^n to be very 
great, as it puts them in possession of a certain part of the 
language of the country in which the plants are found. Such 
names are often not less euphonous than those admitted by 
the Linnaen school as unexceptionable : witness, Licaria and 
Eperua, rejected Caribean generic names ; and Glossarrhena, 
Guldenstadtia, Schlechtendahlia ; and similar admitted Lin- 
naean names. Indeed, so impossible is it to construct generic 
names that will express the peculiarities of the species they 
represent, that I quite agree with those who think a good, 
well-sounding, unmeaning name by far the best that can be 
contrived. The great rule to follow is this : — 
In constructing a generic name, take care that it is har- 
monious, and as unlike all other generic names as it can be. 
In adopting generic names, always take the most ancient, 
whether better or worse than those that have succeeded it. 
Attend as much as you will to the canons of Linnaeus in 
forming a name of your own j but never allow them to induce 
you to commit the incivility of rejecting the names of other 
persons, because they do not think fit to acknowledge arbi- 
trary rules which you are disposed to obey ; and let the con- 
duct of Schreber, a German botanist, who has been held up 
to universal scorn for having presumed, without authority, or 
any sort of pretention to a knowledge of the plants of Aublet, 
to alter the w^hole nomenclature of that author, to the great 
confusion of science, be a warning to you, never to be induced 
to sanction any similar deviation from the rules of courtesy 
in science. 
When species are named after individuals, the rule of con- 
struction is this : if the individual is the discoverer of the 
plant, or the describer of it, the specific name is then to be in 
the genitive singular ; as Caprifolium Douglasii, Carex Men- 
ziesii ; Messrs. Douglass and Menzies having been the dis- 
coverers of these species ; and Planera Richardi, the species 
so called having been described by Richard : but if the name 
is merely given in compliment, without reference to either of 
