VIII. THE STEM. l6l 



12 34 



Stella, Lucia, Alata, Clarissa, 



Francesca, Campanula, Viola, Persica, 



Primula. Convoluta. Margarita. Rosa. 



22. I do not care much to assert or debate my 

 reasons for the changes of nomenclature made in this 

 list. The most gratuitous is that of ' Lucy ' for 

 « Gentian,' because the King of Macedon, from whom 

 the flower has been so long named, was by no means 

 a person deserving of so consecrated memory. I 

 conceive no excuse needed for rejecting Caryophyll, 

 one of the crudest and absurdest words ever coined 

 by unscholarly men of science ; .or Papilionaceae, 

 which is unendurably long for pease ; and when we 

 are now writing Latin, in a sentimental temper, 

 and wish to say that we gathered a daisy, we 

 shall not any more be compelled to write that 

 we gathered a ' Bellidem perennem,' or, an ' Oculum 

 Diei.' 



I take the pure Latin form, Margarita, instead 

 of Margareta, in memory of Margherita of Cortona* 

 as well as of the great saint : also the tiny scat- 

 terings and sparklings of the daisy on the turf may 

 remind us of the old use of the word ' Margarita?,' for 



* See Miss Yonge's exhaustive account of the name, ' History of 

 Christian Names.' vol. i., p. 265. 



I I 



