1920] Nelson,— Does saximontanus mean * Rocky Mountain?" 195 
(Oesterr. Bot. Zeitschr. 29:119. 1879). Since then we have had Aqui- 
legia saximontana Rydb. (1895), Potentilla saximontana Rydb. (1896), 
Salix saximontana Rydb. (1899), Saxifraga saximontana E. Nels. 
(1899), Draba saximontana A. Nels. (1900), Ribes saximontanum E. 
Nels. (1900) and Juncus saximontanus A. Nels. (1902). 
If these authors intended by the use of this specific «adjective to 
convey the meaning that the plant was restricted to that part of the 
Rocky Mountain system lying north of the Laramie Plains, and call- 
ed by Lewis and Clark the “Stony Mountains," in contradistinction 
to the Park Mountains lying to the southward in Colorado, New Mex- 
ico and eastern Utah, the word seems very well chosen: but if it was 
selected as the Latin equivalent of Rocky Mountains in general, it 
lacks the significance which it would have for one who knew no other 
language than Latin—unless indeed we are to assume that the Rocky 
Mountains are so called from the frequency of loose stone on their 
slopes! 
But the universal belief in the West is that the name * Rocky " al- 
ludes to the predominance of bold cliffs and pinnacles of bare treeless 
rock, which might be described either as rupes or scopuli, but hardly 
as saxa, the latter word being only the prosaic designation for the 
material stone, thought of usually as occurring in detached fragments. 
That this was the view of DeCandolle, a writer of correct and idiom- 
atic scientific Latin, seems to be borne out by numerous passages in 
the Prodromus, e. g., under Pentstemon secundiflorus Benth.: “ In mon- 
tibus Scopulosis" (10:325). To be sure, scopulus in the classics more 
frequently refers to rocks or ledges in the sea; but this is not uniformly 
the case (cf. the account of the cavern of Cacus in the Eighth Book 
of the Aeneid), and the fact of the bold and projecting character of 
the rock seems to be the root-idea. 
But saximontanus has come into such general usage that it may now 
be regarded as a sort of nomen conservandum; there is no doubt that 
we know what it means, and it is hardly pertinent to inquire whether 
to a Roman it would have conveyed the same idea. Since scientific 
Latin has degenerated into a sort of conventional symbol, and seems 
no longer subject to the rules which govern the usage of a living lan- 
guage, priority and universality rather than idiomatic correctness 
will continue to be the chief desiderata, although an ineffectual squeak 
of protest may now and then be emitted by the few surviving classic- 
ists'—JAMES C. NELSON, Salem, Oregon. 
Vol. 22, no. 263, including pages 169 to 184, was issued 14 January, 1921. 
