124 THE AAIERICAN BOTANIST 



In any discussion of plant names it is unnecessary to de- 

 vote much attention to the specific names. These are usually 

 descriptive of plant parts and such other characters as size, 

 habitat, color, abundance, and the like. Various proper names 

 used are also self-explanatory. Some specific names, how- 

 ever, deserve mention, as for instance in Clematis viorna 

 where the specific name comes from two Latin words meaning 

 ornament of the wayside. Ranunculus sccleratus is of interest 

 from an occasional mis-translation which makes it celery- 

 leaved. The real meaning of sccleratus is acrid or biting. 

 Zanthoxylum apiifolium may be properly translated celery- 

 leaved for that is what the name really means. 



Turning to the generic names, we find many of them 

 dating back to periods earlier than the Christian Era. Some 

 have been given in honor of heathen deities, others are the 

 names of ancient plants entirely unrelated to the plants which 

 now bear them, the titles having been misplaced through the 

 vicissitudes of time or the carelessness of early writers, and 

 still others are of such obscure derivation that the translations 

 are at best mere guesses. 



Paeonia, the genus of plants we now call peonies, was 

 named for a mythological personage, the physician Paeon, 

 who is reported to have used the plant in medicine and to 

 have cured the god Pluto with it. Old fashioned folk call 

 the plant, piny, perhaps with better authority than we have 

 for calling it peony, for properly pronounced the generic name 

 is Pi-o-ne-a, easily shortened to piny. The larkspur genus 

 Delpliiiikim is named for a fancied resemblance of the flowers 

 to the classic figure of the dolphin {Delphi.) 



Anemone is usually supposed to be derived from the 

 Greek ancmos, meaning the wind, but the latest editions of 

 Gray's Manual says it is a corruption of na-nian the Semitic 

 name for Adonis "from whose blood the crimson-flowered 

 Anemone of the ancients is said to have sprung." Our first 

 derivation seems to be more in favor for it has given the ver- 



