"222 TllK .U)rKXAl, OF EOTANY 



of doing so : his instinct for portmanteau words would hare in fact 

 telescoped this to gynoeceum ; and Koeper was perfectly justified in 

 following the accepted and traditional usage dating from Linnaeus of 

 taking the clipped root gyn- as expressing a cei-tain suggestion of 

 femininity without implying any necessary connection with actual 

 '* women." This botanical usage is freely recognized by the Oxford 

 Dictionary (1901). 



It is interesting to note in fact that the full root yv»^at»:- does 

 not occur anywhere in botany ; a few genera beginning with gynaec- 

 were proposed by Hasskarl (1844), but they have been since cut 

 down (as Gynaecura to Oynura {cf. Baillon, Diet., and Index 

 Kewensis) ; and no botanical name or term carries the c {k) of 

 yvvaiK-, as in the significant expression '* gynaecology." On the 

 other hand gyn-, as in gynandrous trichogyne, Coelogyne, Gynerium, 

 g3'nophore, &c., and even gy no-dioecious, is one of the accepted 

 commonplace units of botanical terminology, following the Linnean 

 Monogynia, Digynia, &c. Hence Koeper was not only justified in 

 his nomenclature, but perfectly accurate. The connotation of the 

 modern use of the term is even more significant as expressing the 

 locus of the "female" parts of the organism (i.e., the ** mega-'' 

 regions, including the megaspore of the sporophyte and the mega- 

 gamete of the gametophyte), with even less application to the 

 *• women " of a " gynaeceum." 



Koeper's solution of the nomenclature to be adopted was in every 

 way admirable, and there can be no doubt whatever as to the legiti- 

 macy of the oe in both \vords. There cannot be the slightest objec- 

 tion to giving him the full credit of his priority in such a useful 

 conception, the full value of which did not immediately appeal to 

 his contemporaries. Thus, Payer {Organogenies 1857) carries on 

 Androcee (p. 714), but retains Pistil (p. 725) : Van Tieghem 

 {Traite de Botaniqiie, 1884, 1891) similarly uses androcee and 

 pistil ; while in the first modern English " Pmctical " (Huxle}^ and 

 Martin, 1875) neither tenn is employed. Baillon (Dictionnaire, 

 1886) gives Gynecee as the gallicized form of gynaeceum. As pre- 

 viously indicated, most of the text-books of the period follow the 

 error of Sachs (1870) : thus Eichler {Bluthendiagramme, 1875, 

 p. 190) writes androeceum but gynaeceum. In English translations 

 the same spelling is commonly varied to -ium ; while the oe and ae 

 are obscured by the traditional printer's fad of using type diphthongs 

 (in italic). The English translation of Sachs (1875, Bennett & Dyer, 

 p. 488) \vv\ie% Androecium {(\.\^\\iho\-\Q) with gynaeceum (diphthong), 

 and the second edition (Vines, 1882, p. 557) follows ; though in Prantl 

 and Vines (1881, p. 189) gynoecium had been written. Henfrey 

 (4th edit. 1884, Masters and Bennett, p. 119) gives androecium and 

 gynaecinin (diphthongs), and again Vines {Student's Handhook, 

 1895, p. 521) gynaeceum. Engler's Syllabus (1912, xix.) continues 

 gynaeceum. It is also interesting to record that, while the credit of 

 returning to the original terms of Roeper rests with A. F. W. 

 Schiraper (Strasburger's text-book, 1894, p. 365), the English trans- 

 lation (Porter, 1898) gives gynoecium (diphthong), and the revision 



