A NKW NAME FOR THE BAYBERRIES. 103 



reduced to a synonym by so imbecile a proposition as Gans- 

 blunt verna^ or what would be no worse, Gooseblossom verfta. 

 No botanist of our country was ever so unlettered or so crude 

 of intellect that he would have been willing to adopt, if it had 

 been proposed, such an appellation as Dogwood florida. In 

 order that, as a generic type, with binary name, the tree be so 

 accredited in books that use a Latin nomenclature, the name 

 dogwood may be turned into Greek, and then we shall have 

 Cynoxylo7t floriduni, a name which will not offend, but rather 

 commend itself to the mind of every even half-taught botanist. 



But now, as to the case of Gale, it may be questioned 

 whether this name is in the same category with Gansblum and 

 Hondbessen. It must not be overlooked that, while the last 

 two obtain the same pronunciation in I,atin which they have 

 in Dutch or Flemish, and are therefore each exactly the same 

 in I^atin as in the vernacular, it is otherwise with this English 

 name Gale ; for here, in the vernacular, the final vowel being 

 silent, the word is a monosyllable. In I^atin the final vowel 

 is pronounced, and so, without alteration by a single letter, 

 the word is now dissyllabic. There is, then, this one very 

 wide difference between Gale English and Ga-le Latin. Nor 

 is this all ; for even the vowel a has in Latin quite another 

 sound than that which belongs to it as an English word. In 

 view of these considerations, which arise from the principle 

 that a word is a word, not according to how it is written but 

 how it is spoken, it does not seem to be well settled that Gale 

 Latin is not available for the Dutch Myrtle. 



As regards the new name Cerothamnus for our Bayberry 

 shrubs and trees, it seems as if some statement ought to have 

 been made of the reasons for ignoring Rafinesque's name 

 Cerophora. As I glance at the pages of Rafinesque wherein 

 these shrubs are treated of, I perceive such transposition of 

 types, and consequent uncertainty about the application of 

 his new names, generic and subgeneric, as invites to the ignor- 

 ing of his nomenclature of them altogether. 



In that tract of his wherein the Bayberries are dealt with,^ 



^Raf. Alsographia Americana^ pp. 9-12. 



