Rhodora 
JOURNAL OF 
THE NEW ENGLAND BOTANICAL CLUB 
Vol. 7 September, 1905 No. 81 
NOTES ON THE ACCENTUATION OF CERTAIN 
GENERIC NAMES. 
ARTHUR STANLEY PEASE. 
A REVIEW of the accentuation of botanical names as indicated in 
current American manuals discloses a number of inaccuracies and 
inconsistencies. While it is not my purpose here to enter upon an 
exhaustive discussion of these errors, I should like, however, to call 
attention to a few desirable changes in common pronunciation. To 
add to the already overwhelming burden of an increasing and fre- 
quently changing synonymy any change in the accentuation of 
familiar names will probably not arouse great enthusiasm among 
botanists, but to those who believe that whatever the common prac- 
tice may be, a manual or other botanical text-book should contain 
the correct pronunciations, so far as they are known, the changes 
here suggested will not, I hope, seem altogether unwarranted. In 
this article I shall limit my remarks to generic names, as being of 
greater difficulty and variety than those applied to species, and shall 
discuss only certain of the names in the sixth edition of Gray’s 
Manual. 
Before attempting to settle the accent of generic names it will be 
well to ask just what those names are. I shall divide them into the 
following principal groups, in which nearly all generic names are 
included. 
1. Latin and Greek common nouns, many of them names of 
plants, though often not of those genera to which they are now applied. 
Examples are Cornus, Rusus, Rosa; ITEA, PTELEA, MYRICA. 
2. Mythological names: CASSANDRA, ANDROMEDA, CALYPSO, etc. 
