XI. GENEALOGY. 179 



christen it, shortly, ' Rob Roy, ' because it is pre-emi- 

 nently red, and so have done with it ; or rather to dwell 

 on its family connections, and call it ' Macgregoraceous ' ? 



5. Before we can wisely decide this point, we must re- 

 solve whether our botany is intended mainly to be useful 

 to the vulgar, or satisfactory to the scientific elite. For 

 if we give names characterizing individuals, the circle of 

 plants which any country possesses may be easily made 

 known to the children who live in it : but if we give 

 names founded on the connexion between these and 

 others at the Antipodes, the parish school-master will cer- 

 tainly have double work ; and it may be doubted greatly 

 whether the parish school-boy, at the end of the lecture, 

 will have half as many ideas. 



6. Nevertheless, when the features of any great order 

 of plants are constant, and, on the whole, represented 

 with great clearness both in cold and warm climates, it 

 may be desirable to express this their citizenship of the 

 world in definite nomenclature. But my own method, 

 so far as hitherto developed, consists essentially in fasten- 

 ing the thoughts of the pupil on the special character of 

 the plant, in the place where he is likely to see it ; and 

 therefore, in expressing the power of its race and order 

 in the wider world, rather by reference to mythological 

 associations than to botanical structure. 



7. For instance, Plate VII. represents, of its real size, 

 an ordinary spring flower in our English mountain fields. 

 It is an average example, not one of rare size under rare 



