on the Language of Botany. 149 
Some few Englifh terms, it muft be owned, were ufed by the 
learned Grew; fuch as empalement, chive, femet for anther, pointell, ovary 
for germ, and knob or button for fligma: but thefe never made their 
way into the world, or became of general ufe. It is not neceffary 
therefore to difcufs the comparative merits of thefe terms with the 
Linnean ; fince, after all, we muft fubmit to the fupreme law in 
thefe matters, general confent*: and when a Greek or Latin term 
has been once fanctioned by ufe, there can be no doubt but that it 
ought to be preferred even to a term originally Enghíh, Which i is 
either little known, or is applied to another fignification. 
It feems therefore upon the whole to be a.defirable object, that 
all who talk or write of Botany in Englith, fhould keep as clofe as 
pofüble to the Linnean language: nor does it feem liable to any 
material objection, if we proceed with difcretion and propriety, 
without violating the rules of common fenfe or of grammar. 
For inftance, when there is a fignificant Englith term, which has 
been in long and general ufe, it ought to be preferred. ‘Thus it 
would be abfurd to put /emen for feed, or folium for leaf: cell is pre- 
ferable to /oculament, partition to difepiment, and perhaps Jeed-vefel to 
pericarp. Opinions will differ upon the extent to which this excep- 
tion to the general principle fhould be carried : but the original 
terms of the fcience in our language are fo few, that it may very well 
be confined within a {mall compafs. : 
There are however cafes, in which it feems advifable rather to 
invent a new Englifh term, than to adopt the Linnean, "Thus in 
` the cafe of very long words, fuch as campaniform, infundibuliform, by- 
pocrateriform, and other fefquipedalian terms, which give too great an 
air of pedantry to the language, it will perhaps be thought better by 
"1 Si volet -Wius, : — 
« Quem penes arbitrium eft, et jus, et norma loquendi," - 
6 '  moft 
