MONTANA AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE SCIENCE STUDIES. 



Vol. 1, No. 3. BOTANY. Issued May 6, 1905. 



Application has been made for entrance as 2d class matter at Bozeman, Mont, postoffice. 



COMMON NAMES OF MONTANA PLANTS. 



BY J. W. BLANKINSHIP AND HESTER F. HENSHALL. 



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PREFACE. 



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The present list of the popular plant names of some of the more 

 common or striking plants of Montana has been, gradually brought 

 together by noting down the names heard in common use through- 

 out the state and is intended to supply a want not met by any of 

 the text books dealing with our flora and to give aid and encourage- 

 ment to the amateur and student of our native flowers and trees, 

 for whom the scientific names may be hard to remember. No at- 

 tempt has been made by the authors to invent names for the de- 

 serving, but unnamed beauties, which bloom about us, nor have we 

 gone to books to find the names elsewhere in use for any particular 

 species ; we only try to portray faithfully the names originated or 

 applied in local usage, though many of these have been simply 

 transferred from similar or related plants in other regions and have 

 thus become established among us. 



The question is often asked, "Why are these hard scientific names 

 necessary?" By reference to the list of common names in the in- 

 dex following it will be seen that the same common name is often 

 applied to two or more very different species in different parts of 

 the state and to still other species in other countries or states, so that 

 jiny discussion of our flowers by their common names would scarce- 

 ly be understood outside of the limited locality where the paper was 

 written, while it is intended to have only one scientific name, ex- 

 pressed in Latin, for each species in every language and in all coun- 

 tries and thus secure accuracy of expression otherwise unattainable. 

 Hence it is that, while common names may be very helpful in the 

 local' study of a flora, they cannot supply the place of their Latin 

 equivalents in papers intended for general circulation. 



We would now remind you of the fact that only a small propor- 

 tion of our flowers have yet received common names and that you 

 have just as much right to christen them as any one else, while the 



