224 UPLAND AND MEADOW. 



There are two other varieties of this fern, but neither 

 80 common in this vicinity ; for I am speaking of the 

 flora of a farm, not a county or even a township. 



Not right among them, yet not far away, are spleen- 

 worts and shield-ferns, handsome always, but not so 

 striking to the average rambler, unless he is something 

 of a botanist. Tiiese common names refer to the char- 

 acter of the seed-growths, and perhaps those who have 

 seen a human spleen can trace a resemblance between it 

 and them, in the case of those ferns called spleen-worts. 

 The resemblance is a very fanciful one. The others 

 are more intelligibly named ; but, after all, what folly it 

 is to continue the use of such names for plants when 

 far better ones are known to a few and accessible to 

 all. Wliy not call the bracken, pteris, as the botanist 

 does ; and speak of the osmunda, asplenium, or aspidium, 

 as the case may be. Let nomenclature be simple and 

 intelligible, so far as possible; even descriptive, when 

 practicable; and then let such names stand for common 

 use the wide world over. Why professional botanists 

 should monopolize the proper names, and the common 

 crowd rest satisfied with meaningless nicknames or noth- 

 ing, I have never been able to determine ; unless it be 

 that this common crowd, in all that pertains to natural 

 history, either glories in its ignorance or is influenced 

 by teachings, not yet unknown among us, that such 

 knowledge is dangerous. How dangerous no one knows. 

 Only yesterday, the mother of a promising youth boasted 

 of her son's taste for natural history. "Nip it in the 

 bud," was the advice of a — well, let us say, mistaken man ; 

 but I harbor harsher thoughts as I write the words. 



