THE GENDER OF RUMEX 



By J. C. Nelson. 



I HAVE sometimes wondered if modern authors were 

 wholly justified in treating the word Rumex as masculine. 

 The tendency in name in -x, especially those of a classical 

 origin, is to be feminine. Qf the genera mentioned in Gray's 

 Manual, Atriplex, Car ex, Glaux, Hystrix, Ilex, Larix, Phlox, 

 Salix, Sniilax and Styrax are all feminine. That the rule is 

 not uniform is shown by Panax, neuter and Ulex, masculine ; 

 but the tendency toward the feminine is certainly marked, as 

 seems to be the case in Latin words other than the names of 

 plants. Moroyer, the Latin lexicon in common use — Freund's, 

 revised by Andrews — giyes rumex, "sorrel", as feminine and 

 refers to a passage in Pliny the Elder (XL 8, 1) which in 

 my edition (that of J. Dalechamp, Frankfort, 1608) reads 

 as follows : 



"Geras ex omnium arborum satorumque floribus con- 

 fingunt, excepta rumice & chenopode." 



Here the form of the modifying word excepta shows that 

 rumice is taken as feminine. I was unable to find any other 

 classical passage in which the word was used in such a way 

 as to indicate its gender and began to wonder if for once the 

 diyine Linnaeus had been caught napping. But on referring 

 the question to a gentleman who enjoys what is in these days 

 the rare distinction of being both a classicist and a botanist, 

 Dr. A. S. Pease of the University of Illinois, he called my 

 attention to the fact that while the reading in Pliny seems 

 accepted by all recent editors, there is in the pseudo-Vergilian 

 poem Moretinn a line {??)) reading thus: 



