352 WANT AND EXCESS 



with our botanists to Anglicise the learned names, 

 in the way that they have been Gallicised by the 

 French. Thus the people of different countries, 

 and often of different parts of the same country, 

 are unable to converse about the greater number 

 of the plants, unless they shall first make them- 

 selves masters of the technical language of bo- 

 tany, and that can only be done by a very limited 

 number. Even in that there is more difficulty 

 than there should be ; for the plants have so many 

 names and synomymes, that if the whole were 

 written in alphabetical order, the number of spe- 

 cies would appear to be almost forty thousand'; 

 yet all these names occur in the books, so that 

 they who read for a knowledge of plants, must 

 know what they all stand for ; and thus the no- 

 menclature of botany is nearly ten languages. The 

 names, too, are such that a common English reader 

 cannot attach a particular meaning to any one 

 of them, and there are many to which no reader 

 can attach any meaning, although he were master 

 of all the languages that are spoken, or ever were 

 spoken under the canopy of heaven, because they 

 are " made-up names," and have no reference 

 to any thing discoverable about the plant. As a 

 specimen, we may mention a few of the names 

 of the lichen which was mentioned before, as fur- 

 nishing the bloom- dye, called Cudbear. They 

 are, 



Lichenoides crustaceum et j Dillenl in Raii . 



leprosum, $c ) 



Lichen tartareus 1 Linmeus. 



Lichen scucorum ) 



