232 
INTRODUCTION TO BOTANY, 
rose, musk-rose, garden-rue, meadow-rue. In some cases* 
when the smallness of the plants, as in mosses, or their 
common use did not require accurate discrimination, as in 
grasses, these genera were inconveniently long, and they 
required a line or two of description for their distinction, 
as Gramen paniculatum nemorosum, latiore folio, glabrum, 
panicula nutante non aristata (now called schenodorus 
elatior, see vol. ii. p. 115): but in justice to the old botanists 
it must be confessed that these long names, the plants not 
being of any use, were to be found only in catalogues ; 
whilst those which frequently occurred seldom exceeded 
two or three words, and most commonly were designated 
by a single word. 
The distress induced by the conquest of the South of 
Europe by the Northern nations having abolished the use 
of garlands in feasts, and of course the cultivation of 
flowers, there remained only the economical and medicinal 
uses of plants to engage persons in the study of them; 
hence the appellation of physic-gardens given to the oldest 
collections of living plants : but the conquest of Mexico 
by the Spaniards having introduced a taste for the cultiva- 
tion of flowers from that city, and the novel appearance 
of the vegetation of the new Continent a similar taste for 
collecting rare plants, the name of physic-garden became 
changed into that of botanic-garden. 
These new plants requiring new distinctions, they not 
being in many cases referrible to European types, and their 
native names, either unknown, or barbarous to our ears and 
refractory to our mode of orthograplw, occasioned bo- 
tanists to turn their attention to the forming of a regular 
nomenclature. Gesner first proposed that all plants having 
similar flowers and fruits should be called by a common 
name; a rule which, in many cases, required the disuse of 
the old substantives, and the supplying of their place by 
adding distinctive phrases to those substantive's that were 
retained. Rivinus, agreeing with Gesner in the main, first 
limited the accompanying discrimination to a single adjec- 
tive. Linnaeus adopted this restriction of what he called 
the trivial name, to a single word; but used, in some cases, 
the old substantive denoting the plant in apposition with 
the new one, as Triticum Spelta, Artemisia Absinthium. 
In a few instances he violated his own rules, and used two 
words for his generic or specific name, as Liquid ambar 
styraciflua, Ros marinus officinalis, Alisma Plantago aqua- 
tiea, Amomum Granum Paradisi, Mimosa Unguis cati. 
