THE PLANT WOELD 95 



BRIEFER ARTICLES. 



Derivation of Wimosa. 



In Yolume XXIII of the Prooeediiigs of the American Academy, 

 at page 307, there is record of an attempt made by Professors Eobinson 

 and Greenough, of Harvard University, to reach the derivation of the 

 genus-name Mimosa. As apparently exhaustive of the resources of 

 Latin and Greek roots as bearing on the origin of such a name, the 

 effort was learnedly made; but the result, as Professor Eobinson con- 

 ceded, was far enough from what could be called successful. 



The failure of these two scholars, botanist and etymologist, to solve 

 the problem undertaken, was inevitable; and that because of their erro- 

 neous assumption that Mimosa is a substantive. Almost all genus 

 names for plants are substantive, it is trae. Linnaeus promulgated a 

 rule which requires that all adjective names for genera be rejected; and, 

 while most botanical authors have since kept the rule when forming 

 new names, the rule-maker himseK repeatedly violated it; and no one 

 in editing his works has ever yet very thoroughly corrected his viola- 

 tions of his own rules; and so we have in use names as Gentiana, Valeri- 

 ana, Nicotiana, Tmpatiens, Bldens, Fissidem, Mirabilis, Primula, 3Iimosa, 

 and many more, all adjective names. 



Tournefort, the earliest authority appealed to by our authors, had 

 guessed that the name 3Iimosa was substantive, and that it had been 

 derived from the Latin mimits, a mimic actor; but that is seen to be 

 both naturally improbable, and etymologically impossible. But the 

 difficulties all vanish, as many difficulties onomantic and phytologic are 

 apt to vanish in the light of history. The type of the genus 3Iimosa 

 appears to have been first mentioned in print by the old Spanish writer 

 upon drags, C. Acosta. His work, a most important one in its day, 

 upon the subject of the vegetable materia medica, was soon translated 

 into Latin, as well as into several modern languages. In the Latin 

 edition the new plant remarkable for the apparent sensibility or touch- 

 iness of its foliage, was called the Herha viva, in Italian the Herha deli- 

 cata, in French the Seusitlva, while in the original Spanish it was the 

 Yerha mimosa, mimosa, being, in that language, the adjective expression 

 of delicateness, sensitiveness, peevishness, etc.; and the word is so 

 Latin in its form and sounding, that it gradually slipped into the place 



