1859.] SCRIPTUEB PLANTS. 143 



tical agrees with the presumed analogical rule. When the word 

 is compounded of a noun of the third declension and an adjec- 

 tive, the s of the genitive may be supposed to be ehded euphonioe 

 causa, to avoid cacophony , or a harsh or ill sound. 



Pecudes lanigercB, cornigeri Jimdi, equi cornipedes, may be 

 quoted in support of the rule ; but to show that it is not absolute, 

 cornucopia, tabernaculum (not taberniculum) , viaticum, unanimis 

 {unius animi), undecem [uno and decern), and many other com- 

 pounds, may be urged. The rule appears to be absolute or un- 

 changeable when the second part of the compounded word is a 

 derivative of fero, gero, or such-like, as uvifer, carniger, furcifer, 

 etc. 



The Continental practice, which is all but universal, appears to 

 be preferable, in order to avoid the inconvenient concurrence of 

 vowels when the first part of the compound word ends in a pure, 

 as prosodians say, or a after a vowel, as lAnaria. Linarice is a 

 more manageable word than Linarii, and the logical sense is 

 clearer. 



If the question is to be decided on grammatical principles, the 

 above suggestion is worth consideration. If an appeal is made to 

 practice or authority, there are ten to one in favour of what is 

 here proposed. Finally, if the writer in the ' Phytologist ' who 

 has been reminded by " B." (vol. iii. p. 95) of having by an over- 

 sight misled the readers of this Journal, has erred, he has a nu- 

 merous and influential band to back him. This is something. 



"Solamen miSeris (misero) socios habuisse dolori3 (erroris?)." 



SCEIPTUEE PLANTS.— HYSSOP. 



I am gratified with the announcement, in your January address 

 to the readers and contributors of the ' Phytologist,' that we are 

 to have some articles on this subject, as I know there is much 

 to be written for our learning, as to what the plants named in the 

 original Scriptures truly are ; and although we may excuse many 

 of the names given in English by our early translators in the 

 authorized version, on the ground that little was at that time 

 known of plants, still, as we have the advantage of 300 years' in- 

 creased knowledge, errors, when discovered, should be corrected. 



