2 PLANT NAMES 



their gardens they will call a Forget-me-not Myo- 

 soHs, and a Wallflower Cheiranthus. This is really 

 a rather ridiculous pedantry; no first-rate gardener 

 will do it. As well might we in our ordinary talk 

 call an Oak Quercus, or a Daisy in the lawn Bellis 

 perennis. An old poet satirizes this habit : 



" High-sounding words our worthy gardener gets, 

 And at his club to wondering swains repeats; 

 He there of Rhus and Rhododendron speaks, 

 And A Ilium calls his Onions and his Leeks ; 

 Here Arum, there Leontodons we view. 

 And Artemisia grows where Wormwood grew." 



Perhaps pedantry of this kind has helped to 

 cause the popular prejudice against the scientific 

 terminology of plants. Why not, people sometimes 

 say, be satisfied with the popular English names ? 

 Is it fair to the lovely little flowers to Hnk them with 

 these horrid words ? And does it not scare away 

 beginners who find that they have to burden their 

 memories with a multitude of names which convey 

 no meaning to them ? 



This prejudice against scientific names is unreason- 

 able. Every science has a whole vocabulary of 

 terms which repel the outsider. A boy gets in- 

 terested in moths or birds or stones, and he soon 

 finds that he has to learn plenty of long names 

 derived from Greek and Latin, which in a short 

 time become famihar to him. Why should Botany 

 be an exception ? 



But really no science could dispense with such 

 words. For science is an international thing; 



