PRONUNCIATION OF NAMES. 51 



frequently descriptive of something curious in the structure of the 

 plant. Very many generic names, however, are commemorative, or 

 given in honour of eminent botanists, whose example is thus pleasantly 

 held up before the mind when the plant happens to come in view. 

 Such are Linnwa, BanJcsia, Caleya. The specific names are usually 

 adjectives, and materially assist us in remembering and identifying 

 the plant. In the following pages the English name is given first, 

 and the Latin one afterwards, the latter being everywhere printed in 

 italics, and accented. When Latin names end with a single e, this 

 must be sounded, and ch is always to be pronounced as in Christopher, 

 except in the commemorative, which follow the national pronunciation. 

 Every one should learn the Latin names, if he would be intelligible 

 to his brother-botanists, even on opposite sides of the town, so greatly 

 do the popular or local names vary. The aim in the present volume 

 has been to select out of the latter the most elegant and appropriate, 

 and to discard, as far as possible, names conferred from mistaken 

 notions, since they tend only to perplex and engender error. Unhap- 

 pily, English nomenclature is crowded with such names, again shewing 

 the desirableness of familiarity with the Latin ones. It is proper to 

 add, that the Latin names, as well as the English, vary considerably 

 in difierent authors, owing to circumstances which cannot well be 

 explained here. Those have been adopted in the following pages 

 which are best known and most commonly used, the duplicate 

 names or "synonymes" being added whenever necessary. 



