Many of the names introduced by Linnæus certainly appear fanciful enough. Thus he gives the name Bauhinia to a plant which has leaves in pairs, because the Bauhins were a pair of brothers. Banisteria is the name of a climbing plant in honour of Banister, who travelled among mountains. But such names once established by adequate authority lose all their inconvenience and easily become permanent, and hence the reasonableness of one of the Linnæan rules[43]:—
That as such a perpetuation of the names of persons 309 by the names of plants is the only honour that botanists have to bestow, it ought to be used with care and caution, and religiously respected.
[43] Phil. Bot. s. 239.
[3rd ed. It may serve to show how sensitive botanists are to the allusions contained in such names, that it has been charged against Linnæus, as a proof of malignity towards Buffon, that he changed the name of the genus Buffonia, established by Sauvages, into Bufonia, which suggested a derivation from Bufo, a toad. It appears to be proved that the spelling was not Linnæus’s doing.]
Another Linnæan maxim is (Art. 219), that the generic name must be fixed before we attempt to form a specific name; ‘the latter without the former is like the clapper without the bell.’
The name of the genus being fixed, the species may be marked (Art. 257) by adding to it ‘a single word taken at will from any quarter;’ that is, it need not involve a description or any essential property of the plant, but may be a casual or arbitrary appellation. Thus the various species of Hieracium[44] are Hieracium Alpinum, H. Halleri, H. Pilosella, H. dubium, H. murorum, &c., where we see how different may be the kind of origin of the words.
[44] Hooker, Fl. Scot. 228.
Attempts have been made at various times to form the names of species from those of genera in some more symmetrical manner. But these have not been successful, nor are they likely to be so; and we shall venture to propound an axiom in condemnation of such names.
Aphorism XVI.
Numerical names in Classification are bad; and the same may be said of other names of kinds, depending upon any fixed series of notes of order.
With regard to numerical names of kinds, of species for instance, the objections are of this nature. Besides that such names offer nothing for the imagination to take hold of, new discoveries will probably alter the 310 numeration, and make the names erroneous. Thus, if we call the species of a genus 1, 2, 3, a new species intermediate between 1 and 2, 2 and 3, &c. cannot be put in its place without damaging the numbers.