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INTRODUCTION TO BOTANY. 23S
The regularity of this nomenclature was hailed as a great
improvement, and as a means of fixing the names of plants;
indeed, as long as the Species Plantarum of Linnaeus himself
was considered as the common repertory of botanists,
it was such; and this advantage would have remained if
he had been incapable of error, or botany remained stationary
: but further researches have shown that many of
his species do not agree with the generic character, and
of course they have since been removed to other genera;
that several are collections of a number of species, or even
of several genera of plants, and of course have been divided;
while new plants have been discovered which are
not comprehended in his writings.
The rapidity of these alterations, and the number of the
works in which they are scattered, exceeding the power of
the enumerators of plants to collect together as fast as they
are proposed, obliges those writers who have occasion to
mention a number of plants, not only to quote once for
all the repertory, or pinax, from whence the generality of
the names they use are taken, whether it be the Species
Plantarum of Linneeus, or of Willdenow, the Synopsis
Plantarum of Persoon, the Dictionnaire de la Botanique
of Lamarcke, the Systema Vegetabilium of Roemer and
Schultze, the Regni Vegetabilis Systema Naturale of De
CandoUe, or any other similar work; but also to annex to
the other names not taken from this more common repertory,
the books, and frequently the editions, from
whence they are taken, as modern botanical authors often
change the names they have themselves given to plants.
This necessity of quoting the works from whence the
names are taken, because the same name has been used by
different authors, or even by the same author in different
works, or editions, to denote different plants, renders the
supposed advantage of what is falsely called the Linnoean
nomenclature, since Rivinus was the original proposer,
and which appears so brief and regular in theory, not only
a mere nullity in practice, but in reality proves its infe-
riority to the old method of adding specific differences
to the generic name, when this method is corrected by the
caaon of Linneeus, that the distinctions should be taken
from what may be observed in the plant itself, and not
from its place of growth or other extraneous circumstances,
although the convenience of these being noted as accessories
are acknowledged and used by all; since neither have the