Thus the generic name given all members of the cat tribe being Felis, the name Felis leo designates the lion; Felis pardus, the leopard; Felis domestica, the house cat, and so on.

This seems perfectly simple and natural now, but to understand how great a reform the binomial nomenclature introduced we have but to consult the work of Linnaeus's predecessors.

A single illustration will suffice.

There is, for example, a kind of grass, in referring to which the naturalist anterior to Linnaeus, if he would be absolutely unambiguous, was obliged to use the following descriptive formula: Gramen Xerampelino, Miliacea, praetenuis ramosaque sparsa panicula, sive Xerampelino congener, arvense, aestivum; gramen minutissimo semine.
Linnaeus gave to this plant the name Poa bulbosa--a name that sufficed, according to the new system, to distinguish this from every other species of vegetable.

It does not require any special knowledge to appreciate the advantage of such a simplification.
While visiting Paris in 1738 Linnaeus met and botanized with the two botanists whose "natural method" of classification was later to supplant his own "artificial system." These were Bernard and Antoine Laurent de Jussieu.