MR. G. BENTHA.M ON EUPHORBIA.GEJB. 195 



Society in 1803 as a manuscript name of Roxburgh's in Ander- 

 son's garden at Madras. But the name was never taken up by Rox- 

 burgh in any of his works, and was abandoned by "Willdenow, pro- 

 bably on account of its being a local name of some uncertainty ; 

 Willdenow again published the genus in his 6 Species Plantarum 5 

 under another manuscript name of Roxburgh's, Gelonium ; and 

 under tins name Roxburgh entered the plant in his 'Hortus Benga- 

 lensis,' and Adrien de Jussieu in his ' Euphorbiacearum Tentamen.' 

 The name has thus acquired the right of prescription, and is gen- 

 erally adopted by, I believe, all botanists except Baillon, who 

 certainly was under some wrong impression regarding it ; for in 

 1 Adansonia,' i. 349, he quotes Suregadabilocularis,Hoxb. Fl. Ind, 

 iii. 829, which is the page where Roxburgh describes his genus 

 Gelonium. 



Much trouble has been practically given in the shape of useless 

 additional synonyms, complication of indexes, &c, by alterations 

 in the spelling of established generic names by way of correction. 

 This has been chiefly done in two classes of cases : — first, where in 

 dedicating a genus to a person the spelling of his name had been 

 more or less altered; and secondly, where, in deriving a name 

 from the Greek, the ordinary rules of etymology had not been 

 followed. 



The spelling of the names of persons is often complicated, es- 

 pecially when transferred from one language to another, or dis- 

 cordant with the principles of classical Latin orthography : there- 

 fore in latinizing them botanists of the last and even of the 

 present century had thought that euphony required their modi- 

 fication, making Gundelia from Gundelsheimer, Levenhookia from 

 Leewenhoeck, Goodenia from Goodenough, Stranvcesia from 

 Strangways, Andreoskia from Andrzeiowsky,and numerous others. 

 The names thus modified are just as fit to commemorate the per- 

 sons to whom they are dedicated as if they were punctiliously 

 exact but difficult or often impossible to pronounce properly in any 

 language but their own. Individual letters represent a very dif- 

 ferent sound in different languages. The English double o makes 

 two syllables in France and Germany ; the Dutch double vowels 

 have in other languages a very different effect from the legiti- 

 mate one ; the Polish z is either mute or, when in combination 

 with other letters, represents our h ; one Russian letter (the ch of 

 church) can only be rendered by four letters in German, three in 

 French, two in English, one in Italian, or one (a different one) 



