Part 88. Early attempts at describing. Before the time of Linnaeus, the attempt was made by many botanical writers to avoid the language difficulty by the use of pictures to show what they meant, much as we have done in the foregoing chapters. A good picture is certainly to be preferred to a description that is not understood; but a little thought will show that pictures, however good they may be, cannot solve the whole difficulty. We cannot make a picture of a species, but merely of a single individual; and our conception of a species must be our idea of the features which all its individuals have in common. A number of pictures of different individuals might convey more of this idea, but even then peculiarities perceptible only by touch, taste, or smell could be indicated only by words. Moreover, even features that may be represented in a picture generally need the help of words to point out what especially calls for attention; and when species are compared and classified one arrives at important general ideas which cannot be pictorially expressed. Add to these shortcomings the greater labor and expense involved in publishing pictures, and it becomes evident that verbal means are needed.

For centuries, as we know, all learned works were written in Latin; consequently, it was from this language that the botanical terms were primarily taken. These were often common words to which a meaning was attached differing from the ordinary one, more or less, in its application; or, sometimes new words had to be coined and this was frequently done by latinizing words or combinations of words taken from the Greek.

As with the early attempts at forming systems of classification, so in the development of a botanical terminology or technical vocabulary, different writers went about the matter in different ways; and such independence of action naturally led in this case also to a good deal of confusion. From this embarrassment of riches, which threatened to be a serious hindrance to further progress, Linnaeus, again, found the best means of practical relief, just as he did in the matter of classification and nomenclature.