6. Early plant names. The exact form of the name by which each kind of plant should be known was not decided until the middle of the eighteenth century. Then certain practical reforms were brought about mainly through the writings of the great naturalist Linnaeus who is revered as the Father of Botany. Before this time many of the names which botanists used were exceedingly cumbersome. The difficulties under which students then labored are well illustrated by the following passage which occurs in a letter to Linnaeus from his friend Dillenius:

"In your last letter of all, I find a plant gathered in Charles Island, on the coast of Gothland, which you judge to be Polygonum erectum angustifolium, floribus candidis of Mentzelius and Caryophyllum saxatilis, foliis gramineis, umbellatis corymbis, C. Bauhin; nor do I object. But it is by no means Tournefort's Lychnis alpina linifolia multiflora, perampla radice, whose flowers are more scattered and leaves broader in the middle, though narrower at the end."

The plant which this learned man had so much trouble in naming was afterwards called by Linnaeus simply Gypsophila fastigiata- the name now recognized by botanists.