26  REV.S. MATEER ON THE TAMIL POPULAR NAMES OF PLANTS. 
to each other; and the particular species is defined by an adjective 
or another noun preceding. 
“Tutti,” for instance, appears to signify mallows in general. 
Then there are ottututti = adhering or sticking mallows = Urena 
sinuata, so called from its having fruits which cling to clothing 
or other surfaces with which they come into contact. Kattututti= 
jungle- or wild tutti, is Sida hirta, Nila tutti = ground-tutti, is 
Sida cordifolia, and Perun tutti = great tutti, is Sida asiatica, 
and so on. 
A similar use is made of such general terms as tali = Convol- 
vulus, kalli = Euphorbia, atti = Ficus, malligei = jasmin, tulasi 
= mint or sweet basil, korei = Cyperus or sedge, mulli = thorn, 
pasi = mosses or aquatic plants, and others. These are qualified 
and defined as in many of our own popular names of plants by 
such nouns or adjectives as river, water, white, black, mountain, 
jungle or wild, dog, elephant, sea or maritime, foreign, &c. For 
example, attumulli = river-thorn is Dilivaria ilicifolia, a pretty 
flowering acanthaceous plant, with leaves strikingly resembling 
those of the holly, which grows by the river-sides. Neer nochi = 
water nochi, is the small tree Vitex trifolia; pey karumbu = devil 
sugar-cane, is Saccharum arundinaceum, a wild and useless sugar- 
cane. 
It is well known that the South-Indian or Dravidian languages 
are not Sanskritic in character or origin, though some of them 
have adopted a considerable proportion of Sanskrit words. Of 
the common names of plants, some are, as might be expected, 
Sanskrit; but the great majority are Dravidian. Many wide- 
spread and useful plants, such as the Plantain, Mango, Tamarind, 
and others, have names derived from both sources. 
In seeking, however, to turn these popular names to account 
for a vernacular systematic nomenclature of plants according to 
the European natural system of classification, we find serious diffi- 
culties in the way. In the first place, great deficiencies in the 
list of general terms are at once apparent. There is no word, 
for example, applicable to the class or order of Palms, only proper 
names of each species; nor are there terms for Ferns and other 
important orders of plants. 
Again, as might be expected, no really proper and distinctive 
names exist in these languages for plants which have been merely 
introduced, though now naturalized; Alamanda, for instance, 1$ 
merely known as “ yellow flower ;” the Cashew, the Feringhee (or 
