From the Church the Vicar conducted the members to inspect the massive arbour in the Chantry garden in which Dr. Jenner laid the foundation of the system of vaccination which has since proved so great a blessing to mankind of every nation all over the globe. The members afterwards assembled in the Vicar's garden, where, amongst other plants, the following more rare specimens were observed:-A healthy Rambusa metake or large Bamboo of fifteen years growth, also Arundinaria falcata or lesser Bamboo. Rudbeckia californica and Harpalium rigidum two finely grown plants, probably both North American, of the sunflower type. Rhus toxicodendron or poison ivy, and at the foot of trees on the lawn were plants of Cyclamen hederifolium. Near the greenhouse flourished a handsome specimen of the laterflowering Christmas rose Helleborus colchicus with strikingly handsome foliage. To the members assembled in the garden was read the following paper : "ON THE NAMES OF PLANTS." [By REV. SIR GEORGE H. CORNEWALL, Bart.] THE subject on which I propose to make a few remarks to-day is one for which no apology is needed. The origin of Plant names possesses an interest to those of our members who have devoted attention to scientific botany, no doubt; but apart from these, all persons who, without entering thoroughly into the classification of plants, have occupied themselves in the cultivation of them, or can be in any sense described as lovers of flowers will be glad, I believe, to take advantage of any light which may be thrown upon the matter. Such persons must often have found it difficult to commit to memory the barbarous collection of syllables which in so-called Latin goes to make up the specific name of some, maybe, insignificant plant, and may be tempted to agree with the little boy who, walking in an arboretum with his father, could not help asking him why such a very small tree should have such a very long name. But when we attempt to propound some system by which the source of such names may be reached, or to discover well marked divisions in which they may be conveniently arranged, the magnitude, I might almost say the impossibility, of the task soon becomes apparent; and it will be noticed that botanists, aware of the difficulty of giving distinctive names to new genera, have been content, in compliment to some notable inquirer in the same branch of study, to name the plant after him. There is no doubt some difficulty in pronouncing some of their names correctly, such as Fuchsia, Dahlia, Eschholtzia; nevertheless the system has its merits, and has immortalized the leading botanists of their day by plants named after them. But a curious and inquiring mind is not altogether satisfied with these, and would, if possible, find in those names the use of which is familiar to him (and which cannot be so explained) some distinctive character claimed by the plant under notice, handed down from remote antiquity, and preserved on account of its fitness and its truth. If such be his expectation he will no doubt be disappointed. The scientific botanist has little to gain from the study of Plant names, and the vastness of the task before him will soon be appreciated. In the first place in seeking the origin of Plant names he will have to make himself acquainted in a measure with languages the most varied, tracing some names up to the Hebrew and Sanskrit, and even when dealing with languages more familiar, such as the Greek and the Latin, he will be met with descriptions of the loosest and vaguest kind; whether he is examining Pliny's Natural History, or Virgil's Georgics, he will hardly be able to identify any plant with certainty; he will find that later botanists have confused the ancient names of plants of the Mediterranean region with plants of a more northern land, and often enough the name, in discovering the real meaning of which he hoped that he was bringing to light matter of great interest, he finds is one which owes its origin to the belief in astrology, in mythology, or in some extravagant healing virtue which had been ascribed to the plant in question. Let me take two instances of this confusion. When we find the word Smilax in an ancient author, we might naturally conceive that it alluded to the common prickly trailer of the Mediterranean region, a well-known species of the Sarsaparilla family, used in the Churches at Cannes for Christmas decoration, a plant very characteristic, with its heart-shaped spotted leaves, its abundant thorns, its wiry stem, its marked climbing habits, and its bunches of berries, like clusters of small red grapes, which hang in the most graceful manner beneath its thick interlaced evergreen foliage. Theophrastus mentions this plant as a tree of the poos kind, but the prinos is identified as the Ilex, or if not the Ilex the dwarf prickly oak, which is very like it-the Quercus coccifera. What likeness is there between the two except that they are evergreen? But Dioscorides and Plutarch make the Smilax synonymous with the unλos or yew; again what resemblance between this large massive forest tree and a delicate climber, except that they both bear berries and are evergreen? Dioscorides further mentions a vegetable Smilax, dressed and eaten like our French beans, and Theophrastus describes a rough Smilax-Smilax тpaxeta. By this Sprengel conceives is indicated the wild convolvulus-Convolvulus sepium. Euripides and Aristophanes both mention the Smilax. Of which of these plants were they speaking? I leave it to a future Solomon. Another instance I may give of the disappointment which may meet the searcher into the origin of plant names. The name Celandine has a charming poetic rhythm. No sonneteer but would wish to enrich his verse with the word celandine. There is no doubt about the derivation of the word; surely it must have something sweet to say anent those golden stars which peep out upon us in early spring from hedge-bank and garden. The name comes to us through the French chelidoine, from the Greek Xeλidwv, a swallow, and it would seem quite a conundrum to find a link between the two-Why is a celandine like a swallow? The answer is easy. Is it not well known, and have not Pliny and Aristotle carefully observed it, that the young of the swallow, when their eyes are injured, are instantly cured by the mother bird who applies celandine to the wound, Cacatis pullis hâc lumina mater hirundo And William Coles, also quoted in Prior's book, writes:-"It is known to have such skill of nature; what wonderful care she hath of the smallest creatures, giving to them a knowledge of medicine to help themselves, if haply diseases annoy them. The swallow cureth her dim eyes with celandine, the weasel knoweth well the virtue of herb grace, the dove the verven, the dogge dischargeth his maw with a kind of grasse; it were too long to reckon up all the medicines which the beastes are known to use by nature's directions only." So much for Celandine; but if such instances prove that much accurate knowledge is not to be gained by the study of Plant names, still it cannot be denied that the subject is very fascinating. It cannot be disregarded if it is desired to explore either the ancient roots of various languages, or the movements of the nations who spoke those languages. Such study may even throw a light on the habits of the nations who carried with them these plant names, and attest the advances made by them in civilization. Take the birch tree. We have the word substantially the same in all Scandinavian and Tuetonic languages, but in Sanscrit and in Hindi, bircht and birchk are also found; birchk-our own birch, with k added in the language of Northern India. What deductions do we make from these facts? Is it a proof of migration of eastern nations to the west? or of the northern nations reaching in their southward journey the Himalayas? Can we find a clue here as to the migrations of Scythians, Saxons, and other like problems? Another tree is found in northern languages-Anglo-Saxon, Swedish, German-nearly identical with our own, the hawthorn. "Hay" or "haw" meaning "hedge." It is thus a testimony as to the use of hedges, dating from a very early period, among the Germanic races. Isaac Taylor, in "Words and Places," points out how very distinctive of the Anglo-Saxon race is the idea of inclosure. England is pre-eminently the land of hedges and inclosures; there are no hedges in France. But in Anglo-Saxon names the suffixes frequently denote an enclosure of some kind, and he instances as such "ton, ham, worth, stoke, stow, fold, park, hay, burg, bury, borrow," remarking that these suffixes prove how intensely the nation was imbued with the principle of the sacred value of property; how eager each man was to possess some spot which he might call his own and guard it from the intrusion of others. The names of plants mentioned in Scripture are an interesting study, and are not entirely without result. We may reasonably suppose that, as regards the vine, the olive, the pomegranate, wheat and barley, we have the correct translation of the Hebrew word, but with many of them there is great difficulty in identifying them. Take the mention of the ash tree in Isaiah; there is no ash indigenous in Palestine. The Septuagint translates it pine; the rose of Sharon is believed to be the narcissus tazzetta; the lilies answering to the Hebrew Shushan are interpreted to be the tulip; the iris and the water-lily, the lilies of the field of the New Testament being universally claimed as indicating the red anemone, which is so abundant in Palestine, and of such remarkable beauty. We have the Greek words in the Septuagint version to compare with the Hebrew, but often there is no connection between them. For instance, the Greek Exaca, the olive, bears no resemblance to the Hebrew Zaith, or the Hebrew Tamar, the palm, to the Greek Powi. But in certain names applying more particlarly to gums and fragrant plants, the names are almost identical in the two languages. Cinnamon, cummin, hyssop, myrrh, nard, galbanum, are examples. The word cane may also be mentioned, for, like the word sack, it is nearly identical in Hebrew, Greek, Latin, and English. The word sack, as I have said, runs through all European language, as if to teach us that a man with a sack to hold what he may gather, and a stick or cane to support his steps and beat off the enemy is fully equipped for whatever may betide. Turning now to plants derived from the Greek, it will be only possible in a short paper to touch very lightly on one or two well-known plants by way of example. Aconite is said by Pliny to be derived from ev aкovais, among the rocks, owing to the situation where it is usually found, a very uncertain guide. As regards Greek myths which cling round the names of such plants as Narcissus and Hyacinthus; in the case of Narcissus, the name of the plant is older than the myth attached to it. It is so called from its soothing properties. Our word narcotic is derived from the same root. Narcissus' amazement at beholding his beauty in a pellucid pool, and his becoming violently enamoured of himself, and at last dying in the agonies of unrequited love, is described at great length by Ovid. The circumstance that he was changed into a flower occupies but two lines, and it was a yellow flower (croceum) into which he was metamorphosed. In the story of Hyacinthus the myths vary. It is allowed that either from the blood of Hyacinthus or Ajax a plant sprung with the letters A I visible on its leaves or flowers. Some declare that Lilium bulbiferum satisfies the conditions. Others claim that the mystic letters may be read on the Gladiolus ramosus, and the epithets applied to Hyacinth, very dark, pale, white, make the difficulty of identification still greater. Equal difficulty will be found in investigating such names as Helenium, as derived from Helen; Centaurea, from the Centaur; Adonis, Achillea, from Achilles; Poeonia from Poeon; and others; and when we reach names derived from Latin we fail to be satisfied with the result of our investigations. For example, Ranunculus is the diminutive of the Latin word meaning a frog; the ranunculus is, therefore, the little frog, alluding to the aquatic habit of some species; a very unworthy designation for so noble and varied a family. But plant names of purely Latin origin are comparatively rare. be useless to detain you by examining further examples. It will The nomenclature of cereals is not without instruction. Our wheat, our oats, and our barley came to us from northern nations; the roots of these names being traced to Anglo-Saxon, High German, and Scandinavian dialects. Wheat is the white grain, as opposed to black barley and oats. Barley, or Beerleg, is the grain from which beer is made. Oats is the edible grain, the main food of these early people. There is interest also in tracing the transformations or corruptions of words, of which, before concluding my paper, I may offer a few examples. Quince-the word is derived from the French coing or coignasse, a quince; but there is an older Provencal word codoing, which shows to us that coing is truly a corruption of the Latin cydonia, a quince, and this, a translation of the Greek Kudovov which offers no description of the characteristics of the plant, but is a name |