92 BARBAROUS PLANT NAMES 



cision. But it is time to enter a mild protest against 

 the intemperate use by botanists of the speech of 

 Imperial Rome. The difficulty of ticketing with dis- 

 tinctive names the ever-increasing horde of herbs must 

 be enormous; still, that is no reason for ignoring the 

 beauty of the language and obscuring its succinct pre- 

 cision. An old Scotch gardener once confessed to the 

 difficulty which this nomenclature added to his voca- 

 tion. Asked whether he did not find it hard to teach 

 his apprentices the long learned names : ' I do that,' 

 replied he; 'and fac' I couldna teach them ava' 

 withoot my memoria technica.' Asked further to 

 give an example of that : ' Weel,' said he, ' see there ; 

 yon 's what they ca' a Cryptomeria japonica ; " Noo," 

 says I to the lads, " when ye want to mind the name 

 o' yon tree, just think o' Creep-to-the-mear-and-jump- 

 onto-her." ' 



Even this worthy's system would have been sorely 

 taxed in respect of a beautiful but unfortunate lily 

 which was exhibited at a London show some years ago, 

 suffering from the pundits as wofully as Susannah did 

 at the hands of her elders ; for there was bound to her 

 feet the excruciating title Lilium umbellatum Thun- 

 bergianum bulbiferum nigro-maculatum. Compare 

 with this mouthing the scholarly simplicity of Linnaeus, 

 who, having to fix a scientific title for the English oak, 

 dubbed it once and for ever Quercus robur oak of 

 oaks. On the other hand, when he presumed to attach 

 a personal name to a plant, he sought out a simple 

 little trailing herb a solitary species, native of his 



