TAXODINE^ 197 



cannot help thinking that, under these circumstances, 

 this rather heterogeneous group might have been 

 invested with a title that showed a little more ori- 

 ginality and marked a little more individuality. 

 But, not content with overrating the capacity of the 

 ordinary human intelligence to analyse long names, 

 these learned pundits of a name-bestowing fame have 

 among the inner ranks of the Taxaceae themselves, 

 in all conscience, truly piled Pelion on Ossa. They 

 have rung the changes with a vengeance upon the 

 tossed-to-and-fro names derived from the once more 

 or less mono-meaning Greek word rafo?, and sown 

 confusion among those who have little time or op- 

 portunity to attempt the profundities of the art 

 botanical. 



If a student were called upon to define genealo- 

 gically, according to Cocker, which for the purpose 

 we may define as Kew Lists, the Common Yew Tree, 

 he would have to write it down as a Taxad, of the 

 scientific and generic name Taxus, of the sub-tribe 

 Taxeae, of the tribe Taxineae, of the family Taxacese, 

 etc., a definition wliich sounds rather like an answer 

 to a question set by some stony-hearted examiner 

 in an Oxford Responsions school. 



But what matter ? The self-taught tree lover can, 

 if he so wish and as he often does, contrive to find 

 and pursue a mitigated pleasure in the cult, without 

 recourse to any attempt at unravelling such inner 

 mysteries of the craft, and which we must acknow- 

 ledge in all honesty the necessity of, even if at times 

 we indulge in a cavil at their intrusion. 



From this genealogical point of view we must add 

 that the Taxodineas are a tribe of the family Pinaceae, 

 and of the order of Coniferse. Their situation as a 

 tribe is adjoining the domains occupied by the 

 Cypress and Araucarias, one on each side of them, 

 and parenthetically we may say, that some members 



