In the ancient writers each recognized kind of plants had a distinct name. The establishment of Genera led to the practice of designating [392] Species by the name of the genus, with the addition of a “phrase” to distinguish the species. These phrases, (expressed in Latin in the ablative case,) were such as not only to mark, but to describe the species, and were intended to contain such features of the plant as were sufficient to distinguish it from others of the same genus. But in this way the designation of a plant often became a long and inconvenient assemblage of words. Thus different kinds of Rose were described as,
- Rosa campestris, spinis carens, biflora (Rosa alpina.)
- Rosa aculeata, foliis odoratis subtus rubiginosis (R. eglanteria.)
- Rosa carolina fragrans, foliis medio tenus serratis (R. carolina.)
- Rosa sylvestris vulgaris, flore odorato incarnato (R. canina.)
And several others. The prolixity of these appellations, their variety in every different author, the insufficiency and confusion of the distinctions which they contained, were felt as extreme inconveniences. The attempt of Bauhin to remedy this evil by a Synonymy, had, as we have [seen], failed at the time, for want of any directing principle; and was become still more defective by the lapse of years and the accumulation of fresh knowledge and new books. Haller had proposed to distinguish the species of each genus by the numbers 1, 2, 3, and so on; but botanists found that their memory could not deal with such arbitrary abstractions. The need of some better nomenclature was severely felt.
The remedy which Linnæus finally introduced was the use of trivial names; that is, the designation of each species by the name of the genus along with a single conventional word, imposed without any general rule. Such names are added above in parentheses, to the specimens of the names previously in use. But though this remedy was found to be complete and satisfactory, and is now universally adopted in every branch of natural history, it was not one of the reforms which Linnæus at first proposed. Perhaps he did not at first see its full value; or, if he did, we may suppose that it required more self-confidence than he possessed, to set himself to introduce and establish ten thousand new names in the botanical world. Accordingly, the first attempts of Linnæus at the improvement of the nomenclature of botany were, the proposal of fixed and careful rules for the generic name, and for the descriptive phrase. Thus, in his Critica Botanica, he gives many precepts concerning the selection of the names of [393] genera, intended to secure convenience or elegance. For instance, that they are to be single words;[90] he substitutes atropa for bella donna, and leontodon for dens leonis; that they are not to depend upon the name of another genus,[91] as acriviola, agrimonoides; that they are not[92] to be “sesquipedalia;” and, says he, any word is sesquipedalian to me, which has more than twelve letters, as kalophyllodendron, for which he substitutes calophyllon. Though some of these rules may seem pedantic, there is no doubt that, taken altogether, they tend exceedingly, like the labors of purists in other languages, to exclude extravagance, caprice, and barbarism in botanical speech.
[90] Phil. Bot. 224.
[91] Ib. 228, 229.
[92] Ib. 252.
The precepts which he gives for the matter of the “descriptive phrase,” or, as it is termed in the language of the Aristotelian logicians, the “differentia,” are, for the most part, results of the general rule, that the most fixed characters which can be found are to be used; this rule being interpreted according to all the knowledge of plants which had then been acquired. The language of the rules was, of course, to be regulated by the terminology, of which we have already spoken.
Thus, in the Critica Botanica, the name of a plant is considered as consisting of a generic word and a specific phrase; and these are, he says,[93] the right and left hands of the plant. But he then speaks of another kind of name; the trivial name, which is opposed to the scientific. Such names were, he says,[94] those of his predecessors, and especially of the most ancient of them. Hitherto[95] no rules had been given for their use. He manifestly, at this period, has small regard for them. “Yet,” he says, “trivial names may, perhaps, be used on this account,—that the differentia often turns out too long to be convenient in common use, and may require change as new species are discovered. However,” he continues, “in this work we set such names aside altogether, and attend only to the differentiæ.”
[93] Ib. 266.