IxXX INTRODUCTION. 



when it is considered that already, in 

 Pliny's time, twelve varieties were culti- 

 vated in the gardens of Italy. — Other 

 names which we must regard as generic are 

 Allium, Genista, JuncuSjLamium, Nimphsea, 

 Plantago, Salix, Vinca; all genera of 

 strong family likeness, in which it requires 

 a cultivated eye to distinguish the species. 



§ 4. GRAMMATICAL ELEMENTS OE ENGLISH 

 PLANT-NAMES. 



It is almost startlino^ to discover that our 

 general terms for plants are hardly ever 

 in native English. It might have been ex- 

 pected that however much in other sub- 

 jects we borrowed, we should have kept to 

 our mother tongue in speaking of the green 

 things of the earth. There are indeed 

 certain collective terms that represent 

 almost a topographical attachment to the 

 soil^ such as Wood, Shaw, Holt, Scrub, 

 Copse, Thicket : these are in our ancestral 

 Gothic. But all our general terms that 

 have any touch of the abstract in them are 

 French or Latin. Thus Plant, Herb, 

 Flower, Yegetablcj Fruit, Branch, Horti- 



