THE ORIGIN OF THE ENGLISH NAMES OF PLANTS. 629 



examples to illustrate it. My object lias been to show that our 

 plant names are not mere sounds, expressing only conventionally the 

 meaning which they now possess, but that they are living symbols, 

 which have grown into their present significance ; and that consequently 

 each carries with it a story, if we can but read it aright, and, further, that 

 the interest of the story is at times enhanced by the fact that it reveals 

 to us circumstances respecting our forefathers of which we can have no 

 other record, for they belong to a period preceding even the earliest 

 dawn of history. 



