U&& OF BARBAROUS NAMES, 



which, independent of barbarism, ought to have been 

 preferred to the very confined one of Nelumbo. In hke 

 manner the Bamboo, Arundo Bambos of Linnaeus, prov- 

 ing a distinct genus, has received the appellation of 

 Bamhusa^ though Jussieu had already given it that of 

 Nastus^ from Dioscorides*^. Perhaps the barbarous 

 name of some very local plants, when they cannot pos- 

 sibly have been known previously by any other, and 

 when that name is harmonious and easily reconcileable 

 to the Latin tongue, may be admitted, as that of the Ja- 

 pan shrub Aitcuba ; but such a word as Ginkgo is in- 

 tolerable. The Roman writers, as Cesar, in describing 

 foreign countries, have occasionally latinized some 

 words or names that fell in their way, which may possi- 

 bly excuse our making Allanthus of Aylanto, or Pan- 

 danus of Pandang. Still I can only barely tolerate 

 such names out of deference to the botanical merits, not 

 the learning, of their contrivers ; and I highly honour 

 the zeal and correctness of Mr. Salisbury, who, in de- 

 fiance of all undue authority, has ever opposed them, 

 naminsT Aucuha, on account of its singular base or re- 

 ceptacle, Eiibasis. I know not how Pandanus escaped 

 his reforming hand especially as the plant has already a 

 p-ood characteristic Greek name in the classical Forster^ 



O 



Athrodactylis. 



* It is not indeed clear that thio name is so correctly applied 

 as that of Cya?nus, because JVastus originally belonged to " a 

 reed with a solid stem," perhaps a palm ; but not being wanted, 

 nor capable of being correctly used, for the latter, it may very 

 well serve for the Bamboo. There is no end of raking up old 

 uncertainties about classical names. 



