JUNE 75 



common name, syringa, is a curious example of the 

 way in which common names once established refuse 

 to give way to more scientific arrangements. For 

 under the one name of syringa the old writers, Clusius, 

 Gerard, Parkinson, and others, lumped together both 

 the mock oranges and the lilac, deriving the name 

 from the Greek <r\'piy, a pipe; 'a virgarum rectarwn 

 longitudine, et fungosae interwris medullae copia qua 

 extmpta ramuli fistulosi sunt' (Clusius). Hence the 

 old English name of pipe-tree, now lost. But 

 botanically the mock orange and the lilacs are far 

 apart, the lilacs being closely allied to the olives, while 

 the mock oranges are near to, though quite distinct 

 from, the myrtles, and so Linnaeus separated them, 

 calling the lilacs syringa, and giving to the mock 

 oranges the old Greek name of Philadelphus, which is 

 by many supposed to have been the jasmine. But a 

 common name is not so easily thrown off, and to this 

 day the mock oranges are commonly called syringas. 

 There are many species, the chief favourite being the 

 large North American P. Gordonianus, and this has the 

 same scent as the common European P. coronarius, a 

 scent which is too powerful to many except in the 

 open air : 



* Of a pleasant, sweet smell (says Gerard), but in my judg- 

 ment they are too sweet, troubling and molesting the head in 



