Latin Plant-names. 49 



should find certain plants indicating a propensity to prey. 

 Animals of lower degree as regards every other disposi- 

 tion of life, why should they not participate in this one ? 

 That they do so is plain. Though as a rule, plants 

 feed upon watery and gaseous matters, supplied by the 

 earth and atmosphere, the members of at least two curious 

 tribes, the Sarracenias, and the Droseracetz or " Sundews," 

 depend not alone on solutions of manure, or other long- 

 since-decayed organic substances, prepared by chemical 

 action, but collect fresh animal food on their own behalf. 

 The latter include the plants that may be seen engaged 

 in their predatory work upon Carrington Moss. 



Before entering upon the consideration of them, we 

 may take the opportunity, furnished by this long word 

 Droserace<z, of saying a little about the "hard names" so 

 often charged upon botanical science. It is continually 

 asked what need is there to call flowers by those excru- 

 ciating Latin titles. Why cannot they have plain English 

 names ? Why must all our names be 

 Like the verbum Graecum, 

 Spermagoraiolekitholakapolides, 

 Words that should only be said upon holidays, 

 When one has nothing else to do ? 



Many make it a ground of abstaining from the study 

 of botany altogether, that the names are so hard to learn, 

 as if every other science and species of knowledge, 

 including history and geography, were not equally full of 

 hard words. But look now at the simple truth of the 

 matter. Very many of the common or "English" names 

 of flowers are in reality their botanical or Latin ones, as 

 E 



