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Our native Cranberry is a little shrub growing flat on 

 the ground with long, dark-crimson, tubular corollas with 

 minute lobes. The fruit is green or white, with a very 

 succulent outer coat. Peachberry looks like a small Epac- 

 ris, but the flowers are bunched, and the fruit places it 

 in this section. The bunched flowers separate it from 

 Cythodes, and the hairless petals from Leucopogon. 



It is very desirable that at least our commoner plants 

 should have popular names. People naturally object to 

 the difficult and often weird appellations used by botanists. 

 But unfortunately much confusion has been caused by 

 thoughtless application. We have given names of common 

 English plants to our natives, to which they have no 

 relation. The tree we call Myrtle is in no way related to 

 the true Myrtle, but is a Beech, and should be called such. 

 Our Laurel, too, has nothing in common with a Laurel, 

 either as scientifically or popularly known in the Old 

 Country. And our Native Cherry is no nearer a Cherry 

 than a cabbage. These names cause false ideas, but the 

 worst confusion is the result of giving the same plant 

 many names, or, worse still, the same name to many plants. 

 Dogwood and Native Pear are names indifferently given, 

 even in the same locality. Every State has its own Ked- 

 gum, while we have in Tasmania two Eucalypts so named. 

 Blue-gum suffers in the same way. That this is a matter 

 of practical importance is evident. A few years ago a ten- 

 der was let to supply Blue-gum, meaning, but not stating, 

 that the wood of Eucalyptus globulus should be supplied. 

 Instead of this, another local Blue-gum, one of the Pepper- 

 mints, was delivered and accepted in all good faith. 



An effort is being made to induce a uniform and 

 unexceptional lot of popular names for all Australia, which 

 shall be taught in our schools and generally used, but even 

 then we shall always require the ultimate appeal of the 

 scientific appellation. Thus, in order to mark off our 

 common Heath from closely allied heaths, we call it Epacris 

 impressa, and if we wish to be quite clear that we refer 

 to the plant originally described by that name, we write 

 after it the name of the person who described it, in this 

 instance, Labillardiere. We write it down as Epacris 

 impressa, Lab. The first name is that of the genus to 

 which the plant belongs, and is formed on a Greek model. 

 The second name marks the species, and is of Latin form. 

 These names are better if they denote some feature of 

 the genus and species respectively. Unfortunately, this 

 is not always the case, so they should generally be treated 



