MARATHI NAMES OF PLANTS. 175 



called E> asela, also quite common there, differing from E. core 

 in having all the spots small ; and we also get E. sinhala, differing 

 from E. Kollari in exactly the same way that E. asela differs from 

 E. core. The core form is very common, and the Kollari form is 

 rare, and I believe the latter was the original form; that it is 

 gradually dying out and has been replaced and pushed out of 

 existence by the other, which has now become the common form. 

 I cannot do better than to end this paper with a quotation from 

 Darwin on this subject; he says: — ' c As in each fully-stocked 

 country natural selection necessarily acts by the selected form 

 having some advantage in the struggle for life over other forms, there 

 will be a constant tendency in the improved descendants of any one 

 species to supplant and exterminate in each stage of descent their 

 predecessors and their original parent. " 



MARATHI NAMES OF PLANTS. 

 WITH A GLOSSARY. 

 By Brigade-Surgeon W. Dymock. 



Molesworth remarks, in the Preface to his Dictionary, that such 

 words as &\T3T, 3\3> or %csr, *rfa, ^"RT, &c, are applied indifferently 

 to the tree and to the fruit, especially in the Konkan ; but that the 

 Desh-people prefer to say 3?l<S2rr# ^FZ, %o5f% fTI"? &c, for the tree 

 or plant and 3?Nt, %5S, *rN", &c, for the fruit. (Op. cit. Pref. p. xiii.) 



At the same time, when it is desired to distinguish between the 

 tree and the fruit, it is usual to make the tree feminine and the fruit 

 masculine, thus, the tree Garcinia indica would be r^Ml" and the fruit 

 *TrrNT. To this rule, however, there are many exceptions, e. g., another 

 name for the same tree and for its fruit is Ujt^, a feminine noun, 

 whilst the seed is called RTlPr, also a feminine noun. 



Many foreign names, usually more or less mutilated, are to be found 

 in Marathi books ; these are mostly derived from the Hindi, Guzarathi, 

 and Canarese languages, and, of course, are most prevalent in the 

 Northern Konkan, the Eastern Dakhan, and Savant Wari Districts. 



We also find that many names are very local and often quite 

 unknown beyond the district in which they are current. 



Some names are applied very loosely to different plants having 

 similar properties, or resembling one another in appearance; for ex- 

 ample, *f^ and *{^T, the first being used to indicate several of the 

 24 



