190 Rhodora, - [NOVEMBER 
e ve i 
, 
in the accented syllable of seventy-one generic names the vowel 
quantity as used in ancient prosody; but this has no bearing what- 
ever upon the English method of pronouncing any of the names in 
his long list. Dr. Gray (and Dr. Watson and Dr. Britton after him) 
used the grave accent" to indicate, not Latin quantity, but that the 
vowel over which it stood was to have the so-called long English 
sound; and the acute accent ^ to indicate, not that the vowel was 
short in Latin prosody, but was to have the “short-vowel” sound 
when pronounced by the English method. 
It is hard to believe that Mr. Pease would have us pronounce RHus 
as though spelled RüsE, or Ròsa as though spelled Rós'sa, and THY- 
MUS as though spelled ThYm'mus, Acer as though ÁS'SER, CLÉMATIS 
as CLE-MATIS, LíLIUM as Li-Lrum. He admits that the English 
method of pronouncing Latin is “so firmly established in this coun- 
try for scientific names that nothing short of a revolution in pronun- 
ciation could supplant it." But such changes as those just cited are 
contrary to the first principles of the English method, and decidedly 
revolutionary ; at the same time they are equally far from what is 
commonly supposed to have been the pronunciation of the ancient 
Romans. 
We have an excellent statement of the rules for pronouncing Latin 
by the English method in Harkness’ Latin Grammar; and the sub- 
ject is well discussed in most pronouncing dictionaries of Greek and 
Roman proper names. A few hours’ study of these rules would 
enable our botanists to pronounce names of plants uniformly and 
consistently. What we hear now is frequently, not the Roman 
method nor the “continental method,” but a medley of these with the 
English method. 
MIDDLEBURY COLLEGE, Middlebury, Vermont. 
AN ALPINE ADIANTUM. 
M. L. FERNALD. 
To a botanist who is familiar with the Maidenhair Fern, Adiantum 
pedatum, of rich deciduous woods of New England and the Alle- 
ghenies, and who looks upon that species as the northernmost Ameri- 
can representative of a large tropical and subtropical genus, itis a 
