76 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 



They could just as well be scientific as the technical names 

 but people have not come to a sufficiently intelligent state to 

 have plants classified that way. Red maple and red oak are 

 just as true names as Acer nibrnm and Quercus riihra. Latin 

 is a foreign language and the only reason for retaining these 

 names is that scientific persons throughout the world may 

 have a language understood by all. Common names are part 

 of one's own language and should be used intelligently with 

 the hope that some day they may become so exact and rep- 

 resentative that a foreign terminology may be dispensed with. 

 As to the identity of the cup-and-saucer plant also asked for, 

 several have suggested it might be a bell wort, Campanula 

 calycantha, but the suggestion of Miss Julia J. Noll and 

 Miss Adella Prescott that it .is probably the primrose called 

 polyanthus is likely to prove the correct one. One of the 

 pleasant features of conducting the magazine, is found in the 

 ready response its readers make to appeals for help in solv- 

 ing botanical puzzles. It is to be feared that Mr. Whitney 

 does not look far enough into the suggested application of 

 the common names. It would probabl)- work when a plant 

 collector was speaking to another in the same State, but how 

 would we make the Germans, French, British, Russians and 

 Japanese use our common names? Many of our common 

 plants grow in the countries of the Old World and their 

 common names should have precedence on the "saw-it-first" 

 principle. Certainly we could not expect them to let us 

 make the common names for them ! Clearly technical names, 

 written in a language that does not change, is best when we 

 require accuracy. 



Largest Vines. — In the November Botanist the edi- 

 tor observes that "which vine is the largest will have to be 

 left to somebody more familiar with tropical botany than 

 the writer". From my acquaintance with tropical vines it 



