192 THE FLOEAL WOELD AND GAEDEN GUIDE. 



member, we have attached a homely name of our own coining, and called it also 

 the " Red-hot poker plant." So, again, as an aid to the unscientific memory, we 

 have desqj-ibed Cineraria maritima as the " Silver frosted plant," the Lonicera 

 hrachypoda as the " Japanese honeysuckle," and Achillea millefolia rosea as the 

 " Rosy Yarrow," etc., etc. Surely the Floral World is, least of all horticultural 

 publications, open to the accusation of needless pedantry. But in the next place the 

 complaint is bad in principle, for these two good reasons : first, that English names 

 are variable, and many of them of purely local use and meaning, whereas properly 

 recognized botanical names are not variable, they are integral parts of the language 

 of science, traceable to authority and definable according to law. For example, 

 suppose we gather together seven persons from seven different counties, all of them 

 interested in plants, but all ignorant of botany, and ask each to give the name of a 

 flower which the botanist has labelled Viola tricolor. Amongst these persons it 

 will be known respectively by such names as Paunse, Pansy, Heart's-ease, Herb- 

 trinity, Love-in-idleness, Kit run-about, and Three faces under a hood. Now if we 

 are content usually to speak of this plant as the Pansy we consider we have done 

 enough to make our pages useful to the majority of our readers, and if some of 

 them fail to apprehend what is meant through never having heard the word 

 Pansy before, the fault is not ours but theirs, because it is a word in common use 

 and to be found in every dictionary. We can, however, quite understand our cor- 

 respondent's remark that our friends are often disappointed when they order 

 something they think new, and it proves to be identical with something they have 

 had in their gardens for years, for that happens to ourselves occasionally, some- 

 times through misapprehension either on our part or the part of others, sometimes 

 simply as the result of a dishonest system of trading, the puffing under a new^name 

 and as new of a plant as old as English gardening. As arguments of this sort 

 should be illustrated by example, we will take the case of the mountain violet or 

 Viola lutea of botanists. A few years ago it was advertised as the " new golden 

 bedding violet," and the name of a practical horticulturist was attached to the puff 

 as a gifarantee of the newness and beauty of the plant. We bought a lot of it on 

 the faith of that man's name, and very soon found Ave had obtained a supply in a 

 rather poor state of a plant which we had possessed at least twenty years, and could 

 have found tufts a yard square to cut up for bedding purposes had we required 

 them. Now, all who know the Floral World, will acknowledge that it never 

 recommends new plants of doubtful value, that it gives no encouragement at all to 

 trade trickeries ; but they may not also be aware that because of its anxiety for the 

 interests of its readers, the trade has never liked it, and have scarcely at all patro- 

 nized it as an advertising medium. Not that that matters, the sale is such that we 

 can do without the trade, and we should not turn aside from our course if they 

 were to alter their minds and rush upon us with favours. A journal depending on 

 advertisements dare not publish such papers as those on " Rough and Ready Gar- 

 dening," for they are intended to save our readers' purses, not to promote extrava- 

 gance, 'and in like manner we please very few by giving the common English 

 names of plants at every opportunity, that our readers may have every possible 

 advantage of understanding what our botanical names mean. But we repeat that 

 in principle the complaint has but slender foundations, for English names of plants 

 are variable, more or less local, and generally undefinable, whereas the Latin 

 names are fixed in the language of science, and cannot be influenced by custom or 

 fashion. As a final illustration, we ask loliat is the Shuttlecock Fern ? 



p. 5.— The best vermin-killer we know of to keep roses clean is the " Aphis 

 Wash," manufactured by the City Soap Company, Milton Street, London, E.G. The 

 vermin-killer we commonly recommend is pure water applied with some force 

 by means of a garden-engine. 



M. 0. X. — Your house will make a fernery admirably. If we had to convert 

 it to this purpose, we should quite fill it with rock- work intersected by irregular 

 walks. Some taste would be required, of course, but that you must find for yourself. 

 To carry out the scheme according to our idea of the capabilities of the place would 

 be an expensive matter ; but you will find no difficulty in constructing banks and 

 beds of peat, and filling these with siich hardy ferns as have been recommended in 

 the Floral World, Garden Oracle, and other of our works. 



