XI. GENEALOGY. 207 



in their inaccuracy, for a daisy is not one whit 

 more composite than Queen of the Meadow, or 

 Jura Jacinth ; * and ' legumen ' is not Latin for a 

 pod, but ' siliqua,' — so that no good scholar could 

 remember Virgil's 'siliqua quassante legumen,' with- 

 out overthrowing all his Pisan nomenclature. 



17. Farther. If we ground our names of the 

 higher orders on the distinctive characters of form 

 in plants, these are so many, and so subtle, that we 

 are at once involved in more investigations than 

 a young learner has ever time to follow success- 

 fully, and they must be at all times liable to 

 dislocations and rearrangements on the discovery 

 of any new link in the infinitely entangled chain. 

 But if we found our higher nomenclature at once 

 on historic fact, and relative conditions of climate 

 and character, rather than of form, we may at once 

 distribute our flora into unalterable groups, to which 

 we may add at our pleasure, but which will never 

 need disturbance ; far less, reconstruction. 



18. For instance, — and to begin, — it is an his- 

 torical fact that for many centuries the English 

 nation believed that the Founder of its religion, 

 spiritually, by the mouth of the King who spake 

 of all herbs, had likened Himself to two flowers, 

 — the Rose of Sharon, and Lily of the Valley. 



* 'Jacinthus Jurae,' changed from ' Hyacinthus Comosus.' 



