351 



embodying a few remarks on certain of the words wliicli were 

 the subjects of communications to Kew may be of some interest 

 here, and inay at the same time serve as further evidence of the 

 wide range of the activities of the establishment. 



Sir James Murray's correspondence began with a postcard 

 dated May 7th, 1887, and continued wuth here and there a rather 

 long silence till June 9th of the present year. His first inquiry 

 related to the identification of the Cabbage Tree. Several 

 palms, including Areca or Oredoxa oleracea, Chamnerops Pal- 

 ihetto, Euterpe oleracea, ^^ whose central unexpanded mass of 

 leaves or terminal bud is eaten like the head of a cabbage/' 



bear this common name. 



Burgundy Hay or Burgundy Trefoil was the subject of the 

 next request for help, and with regard to these the Dictionary 

 records that the names have been applied by English writers 

 to the Lucerne, Medicago sativa, but in French originolly to 

 Sainfoin, OnohrycJiis sativa. 



AVe learn from an inqury of July 21st, 1887, that Calambac 

 is an eastern name of Aloes-wood or Eagle-wood, the product 

 of Aqidlaria Agallocha, and from a later one that the name 

 Campion was first used by Lobel in 1576, his Rose Campion 

 being the well-known Lychiis coronuria. 



The ourliest record for Calyx was found in the first volume 

 of Malpighi's Anatovie Flantarum which was published in 

 London in 1675, though the preface is dated 1671, His con- 

 temporary, Nehemioh Grew, did not use this word, but Empale- 

 ment, and this was the practice of many later authors. Calyx 

 reappears in Ray^s Ilistovia Plantariim, 168G. It is necessary 

 to bear in mind that in Latin there are two very similar but 

 distinct terms, calix, from the Greek KvXcX, a cup, goblet, 

 drinking vessel, and calyx, from KdXv^, that which encloses 

 anything, a husk, hull, shell, etc. The Dictionary says that 

 'Uhe two words are to a great extent treated as one by modern 

 scientific writers, so that the calyx of a flower is commonly 



(though quite erroneously) explained as ' the flower cup,' and 



the f?rm calyx and its ^derivatives are applied to many cup- 

 like organs, which have nothing to do with the calyx of^^a 



caiix or cup.'* 



flower, uut ixxK^ jic«xi.y xxx^«..v .„ ^- - J. -I? V 1 



The familiar wo^d Catkin has been part of the English 

 lancjuaire since 1578, ^vhen Lyte, in his translation of Dodoens 



wrote: -Leaiies spring foorth after the Catkins agglettes, 

 blowinges/' It is derived from the Dutch katteken. ■ 



Dr. Slurray confessed in May, 1888 that he had never head 

 of the word Celeriac, and supposed that it was rare. In he 

 Dictionary he -states that it does not appear to be known outside 

 of English and records the earliest date for its use as 1 * "^^^ 



In popular language Chestnut may ^^f %^^*^f j^^t^,^^,^[,'|^ 

 Chestnut [Acsculu, Hippocastanum) or the S;veet or Spam h 

 Chestnut {Castanea satlva), and as poets and oto wiitei W 

 also used the term without sufficient qua ification Dr. Mur ay 

 before accepting Tennyson's lines from Ihe ^^^^^\^ 



Daughter "-- Those three chestnuts near that hung in 



