Page:An introduction to physiological and systematical botany (1st edition).djvu/411

 Rh Lathræa Phelypæa, and Bartsia Gymnandra; which may also be practised when a plant has been celebrated, either in botanical, medical, or any other history, by a particular name, as Origanum Dictamnus, Artemisia Dracunculus, Laurus Cinnamomum, Selinum Carvifolia, Carica Papaya. In either case the specific name stands as a substantive,, retaining its own gender and termination, and must begin with a capital letter; which last circumstance should be observed if a species be called after any botanist that has more particularly illustrated it, as Cortusa Matthioli and C. Gmelini, Duranta Plumierii, and Mutisii. The latter genus suggests an improvement in such kind of names. The genitive case is rightly used for the person who founded the genus, D. Plumierii; D. Mutisiana might serve to commemorate the finder of a species, while D. Ellisia implies the plant which bears it to have been once called Ellisia.

There is another sort of specific names in the genitive case, which are to me absolutely intolerable, though contrived by Linnæus in his latter days. These are of a comparative