Plant Names 291 



plants instead of calling them by homely ones such 

 as familiar flowers are known by in older lands. 



Two more foolish claims could scarcely be made. 

 In the first place, the doings of fashionable folk in 

 large cities are fortunately far from being a national 

 index or habit. Secondly, in ancient lands the peo- 

 ple named the flowers long before there were bota- 

 nists, here the botanists found the flowers and named 

 them for the people. Moreover, country folk in 

 New England and even in the far West call flowers 

 by pretty folk-names, if they call them at all, just as 

 in Old England. 



The fussing over the use of the scientific Latin 

 names for plants apparently will never cease; many 

 of these Latin names are very pleasant, have become 

 so from constant usage, and scarcely seem Latin ; 

 thus Clematis, Tiarella, Rhodora, Arethusa, Cam- 

 panula, Potentilla, Hepatica. When I know the 

 folk-names of flowers I always speak thus of them 

 — and to them; but I am grateful too for the scien- 

 tific classification and naming, as a means of accurate 

 distinction. For any flower student quickly learns 

 that the same English folk-name is given in different 

 localities to very different plants. For instance, the 

 name Whiteweed is applied to ten different plants; 

 there are in England ten or twelve Cuckoo-flowus, 

 and twenty-one Bachelor's Buttons. Such names 

 as Mayflower, Wild Pink, Wild Lily, Eyebright, 

 Toad-flax, Ragged Robin, None-so-pretty, Lady's- 

 fingers, Four-o'clocks, Redweed, Buttercups, Butter- 

 flower, Cat's-tail, Rocket, Blue-Caps, Creeping-jenny, 

 Bird's-eye, Bluebells, apply to half a dozen plants. 



