NOTICES OF BOOKS. 63 



an assurance that we tliink it likely to promote the study of Botany in 

 Colleges, Schools, and those engaged iu private study. Messrs. Mac- 

 donald and Allan complain of the difficulty of the study, from the use 

 of so many words employed in it which are derived from the Greek 

 and Latin ; and " even the classical scholar, unless very deeply read, 

 and comparatively fresh from his philological studies, must often feel 

 greatly at a loss to decipher, and consequently to fix in his memory, 

 many of the strange terms which Botanists have invented, gathered as 

 they frequently are, not from the familiar walks, but from the bye-paths 

 and obscure recesses of ancient classical literature. Had familiar En- 

 glish terms been employed, instead of obscm-e combinations of foreign 

 vocables, the name of the thing and the thing itself would have been 

 so associated in the mind of the learner, that the one would immediately 

 suggest the other." — As an example of their meaning they say, " Had 

 the expression one-leaved been adopted instead of ' monopetalons,^ or un- 

 covered instead of ^ achlamydeouSy surely the distinctions thus de- 

 noted would be both more readily perceived and more easily remem- 

 bered y and had similar familiar terms been uniformly selected, unques- 

 tionably Botany would have been the most easily attained of all the 

 natural sciences," We believe however the most illiterate tyro in 

 Botany (in respect of classical attainments) would be able to tell Messrs. 

 Macdonald and Allan, that ^^ monopetaloiis*^ does not mean one-leaved^ 

 and that the word " uncovered,*^ applied to flowers we presume, would 

 stand in as much need of explanation as achlauydeov^. With such 



'mm* 



term 



particular form of pubescence. '\ "Opeeculate, having a cover like 

 the antherae (!) of Mosses." "Cristate; applied to a flower having 

 a tufted crest like a cock^s comb." " Coemus ; a bulbous root, which 

 is solid throughout." " Confluent ; a species of foliation in which 

 the leaves grow in tufts, so as to leave the rest of the stalk quite bare," 



r 



etc. etc. 



W 



Folio. Leide ct Dusscldorf. 1853. 



In this elaborate work, accompanied by nineteen plates, our valued 



