106 PROSERPISA. 



very difficult to carry out this principle when 

 tribes of plants are much extended and varied in 

 type : I shall persist in it, however, as far as pos- 

 sible ; and when plants change so much that one 

 cannot with any conscience call them by their 

 family name any more, I shall put them aside 

 somewhere among families of poor relations, not 

 to be minded for the present, until we are well 

 acquainted with the better bred circles. I don't 

 know, for instance, whether I shall call the Burnet 

 ' Grass- rose,' or put it out of court for having no 

 petals ; but it certainly shall not be called rosaceous ; 

 and my first point will be to make sure of my pupils 

 having a clear idea of the central and unquestionable 

 forms of thistle, grass, or rose, and assigning to them 

 pure Latin, and pretty English, names, — classical, if 

 possible ; and at least intelligible and decorous. 



8. I return to our present special question, then, 

 What is a poppy ? and return also to a book I 

 gave away long ago, and have just begged back 

 again, Dr. Lindley's ' Ladies' Botany.' For with- 

 out at all looking upon ladies as inferior beings, I 

 dimly hope that what Dr. Lindley considers likely 

 to be intelligible to them, may be also clear to 

 their very humble servant. 



The poppies, I find, (page 19, vol. i.) differ from 

 crowfeet in being of a stupifying instead of a 



