CHAP. IV. OF NOMENCLATURE AND TERMINOLOGY. 
531 
condemned by Linnaeus, of converting the names by which 
plants are known in countries called barbarous, into scientific 
generic names, by adding a Latin termination to them. The 
advantage of this practice to travellers is known 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 Linnaean school as unexceptionable : witness, Licaria and 
Eperua, rejected Caribean generic names ; and Glossarrhena, 
Gulden stadtia, 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 agree with those who think a good, well- 
sounding, unmeaning name as good as anj^ that can be con- 
trived. 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 a generic name, 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 ; 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 pretension to a kiiowledge of the plants of Aublet, 
to alter the whole nomenclature of that author, to the great 
confusion of science, be a warning tcf 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. Douglas 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 
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