16 STUDIES IN GARDENING 



for every language; and so the person who christens 

 a new plant, whether the discoverer or another, does 

 not usually tax his fancy much in doing so. Some- 

 times he does supply it with a compound descriptive 

 word from the Greek, as in the case of the Chionodoxa, 

 which may, perhaps, in time come to be known as 

 Glory of the Snow or Snow-glory. But he is apt in 

 naming it to pay a compliment to some botanical 

 friend or to commemorate his own achievement; 

 and thus we get names like Brugmansia and Bou- 

 gainvillea, and Tschichatchewia, names which seem 

 to hang like millstones round the necks of their un- 

 fortunate owners. But even these seem worse than 

 they are to our insular prejudice. No doubt Tschi- 

 chatchewia sounds quite simple and pretty to a Pole; 

 and we cannot expect all new plants to bear English- 

 sounding names, unless Englishmen discover them all. 

 Besides, the remedy is in our own hands. Our fathers 

 invented English names for the flowers they knew, 

 and we must do the same for the flowers that were 

 unknown to them, if we dislike the names the botan- 

 ists give them. Until we have done that, we must 

 be content to call a Brugmansia a Brugmansia (or 

 rather a Datura, for that is its present title), however 

 difficult we find it to "tongue" the word. In fact it 

 would be well, perhaps, if all new flowers were named 

 after Poles, so that the difficulty of remembering, 

 spelling, and pronouncing them might act as a spur 

 to the vernacular invention. But, unfortunately, the 

 vernacular invention seems nowadays to be so slug- 



