INTRODUCTION. XIX 



languages in contrasting them with the European. Thus 

 L. Diefenbach, Or. Eur. p. 34 : 



" Hire beiden starnme in Asien : der Indische und der Iranische, 

 der wahrscheinlichst einst auch im ostlichen Europa hauste, ritt, 

 und fuhr, bilden sammtlichen Europaischen gegeniiber eine 

 gruppe die wir die Arische nennen." 



Other terms, such as "Japetic," " Indo- Germanic," and 

 " Caucasian," are too vague, or too limited. 



But independently of the etymology of the names taken 

 by themselves, the question is ever arising, why they 

 should have been affixed to certain plants. Where old 

 writers are quoted, and they give the reason for those 

 that they have themselves imposed, their authority is, of 

 course, conclusive ; but in other cases their notions are 

 often fanciful, and must be accepted with great reserve ; 

 for old as are the writers and their books, relatively to 

 modern botanists and floras, the names that they inter- 

 preted were often older than they, and the original mean- 

 ing of them forgotten. Synonyms in foreign languages, 

 including the Latin, are of essential service, but neither 

 are these very trustworthy; for authors, mistaking the 

 sense of some unusual or obsolete word in one language, 

 have often translated it wrongly into another ; and this is 

 a fault that was as often made in ancient as in modern 

 times ; so that it is quite impossible to reconcile what is 

 said of certain plants by Greek and by Latin writers. In 

 the case of the Hyacinth, Violet, Anemony, and other con- 

 spicuous flowers mentioned by Theocritus as Sicilian plants, 



