ON THE NAMES OF FLOWERS. 39 



given. Wc cannot quite agree with Mr. Loudon, who seems to ap- 

 prove of such names as ' Claremont-nuptials Primrose,' and ' Af- 

 flicted Queen Carnation ! ' though they do point to the years 1816 

 and 1S31, as the dates of their respective appearances ; neither will 

 wc aver that Linnaeus was not something too fanciful in naming his 

 ' Andromeda,' and in calling a genus Bauhinia from two illustrious 

 brothers of the name of Bauhin because it had a double leaf; but 

 surely there is marked character enough about every plant to give it 

 some simple English name, without drawing either upon living cha- 

 racters or dead languages. It is hard work, as even Miss Mitford has 

 found it, to make the Maurandyas, and Alstrcemerias, and Eschschol- 

 tzias, the commonest flowers of our modern gardens, look passable, 

 even in prose. They are sad dead letters in the glowing description 

 of a bright scene in June. But what are these to the polloposte- 

 monopetahv, and eleutheromacroste?nones of Wachendorf, with such 

 daily additions as the native name of iztartcpotzaciixocliielicehneijo, 

 or the more classical ponderosity of Erisymum Peroffskyanum — 



' Like the verbum Grae^um 



Spermagoraiolekitholakauopolides, 



Words that should only be said upon holidays 



When one has nothing else to do.' 



" As to poetry attempting to immortalize a modern bouquet, it is 

 utterly hopeless ; and if our cultivators expect to have their new 

 varieties handed down to posterity, they must return to such musical 

 sounds us Buglosse, and Eglantine, and Primrose, before bards will 

 adopt their pets into immortal song. We perceive some attempt made 

 lately in " Paxton's Magazine," and the better gardening journals, 

 to render the names somewhat more intelligible, by Englishing the 

 specific titles, as Passiflora Middletoniana, Middleton's Passion flower, 

 and the like ; but this is not enough : the combination of a little ob- 

 servation and taste would soon coin such names as our plainer sires 

 gave in ' Larkspur,' and ' Honeysuckle,' and ' Bindweed,' or 

 even in ' Ladies' Smocks,' and ' Ragged Robin,' and ' Love lies 

 bleeding.' As names run at present, the ordinary amateur is obliged 

 to give up the whole matter in despair, and rest satisfied with the 

 awful false quantities which his gardener is pleased to inflict upon 

 him, who, for his own part, wastes hours and hours over names that 

 convey to him no information, but only serve to puff him up with a 



