The Scottish Naturalist. 171 



one day astonished its English readers by remarking on the 



coarse food of the English, in winding up the dessert at a 



Lord Mayor's banquet with fir-cones ! 

 Pitcher-plants. Plants that retain water in the leaves. 

 Strawberry tree (Arbutus Unedo), found in the United Kingdom, in 



its wild state, only at Killarney. It has globular scarlet fruit,. 



with a granular surface, somewhat like a strawberry. 



Wayfaring tree ( Viburtium Lantaua), supposed to be so called 

 "from the white mealy down on the under side of its leaves, 

 giving them a dusty travel-stained appearance." (J. G- 

 Heath.) 



VIII. Misnomers, or misleading names, form the eighth division. 

 They are particularly worthy of note, as wrong inferences will 

 inevitably be drawn from them unless their true origin be known. 

 As guides to classification, the following names are worse than 

 useless, for they lead the learner on wrong tracks. 



The Garden Laurel, with large shining leaves, and the Portugal 

 Laurel, are species of Prunus, and have nothing to do with 

 the True (Victor's) Laurel of the exotic order Lauracece. 



The Acacia-tree in England does not belong to the genus Acacia. 

 It is a North American Robinia, and of the Pea-flower tribe. 



The Black bryony (Tamus communis), has nothing to do with the 

 genus Bryonia, of the Gourd family. 



The Tuberose is no rose ; but belongs to the Lily Order of plants. 

 Its scientific name is Polianthes tuberosa, and from the specific 

 name (given in allusion to the form of the root), the popular 

 name has been derived. 



Hyssop of Scripture is not our hyssop. It is not known what 

 aromatic plant is represented by the Hebrew name ezbbh. 



Turkey Rhubarb neither comes from, nor grows indigenous in, 

 Turkey. It is from Tartary. 



JVolf's Bane. Mr. Fox Talbot gives the following curious 

 account of the origin of this name : " Bane is the Teutonic 

 word for all poisonous herbs. The Greeks, mistaking banes 

 for beans, translated it kuamos. Now, wolfs bane is an 

 aconite with a pale yellow flower, and therefore called white- 

 bane, to distinguish it from the blue aconite. The Greek for 

 white is leukos, hence leukos kuamos ; but lukos is the Greek 

 for wolf; and by a blunder leukos kuamos (white bean) got 

 muddled into lukos kuamos (wolf bean). Then Science comes 

 in to make confusion worse confounded. Botanists seeing the 

 absurdity of calling aconite a bean, restored the original word 

 bane, but retained the corrupt word lukos (a wolf), and hence 

 we get the name ' Wolfs bane,' for white aconite." 



Gooseberry, which, in old English, is grooseberry, meaning rough, 

 or frizzled berry. So, in Scotland, we have grozet (Burns), 



