OF NOMENCLATURE. 283 



V 



with a torrent of uncouth and unmanageable words, 

 but we should be puzzled where to fix our choice, as 

 the same plant may have fifty different original deno- 

 minations in different parts of the world, and we might 

 happen to choose one by which it is least known. 

 Thus, the celebrated Indian plant now proved beyond 

 all doubt to be the Cyamus of Theophrastus*, having 

 been erroneously reckoned by Linnaeus a Nymphcza, 

 received from Gartner, one of the first who well 

 distinguished it as a genus, the Ceylon name of Ne- 

 lumbo ; which being contrary to all rules of science, 

 literature, or taste for a generic name, has by others 

 been made into bad Latin as Nelumbium. But the 

 universal Hindu name of the plant is Tamara, which, 

 independent of barbarism, ought to have been preferred 

 to the very confined one of Nelumbo. In like manner 

 the Bamboo, Arundo Bambos of Linnasus, proving a 

 distinct genus, has received the appellation ofBambusa, 

 though Jussieu had already given it that of Nastus from 

 Dioscoridesf. Perhaps the barbarous name of some 

 very local plants, when they cannot possibly have been 



* See Rvot. Bot. 77. 1. 60, where the arguments in support of this opi- 

 nion are given, and Curt. Mag. t. 903, where some of them are with 

 much candour and ingenuity controverted, though not so as to alter 

 my sentiments; nor can any thing justify the use of Nelumbium m a, 

 scientific work as a generic name. 



t It is not indeed clear that this name is so correctly applied as that 

 of Cyamus, because Nastus originally belonged to "a reed with a solid 

 stem," perhaps a palm ; but not being wanted, nor capable of being cor- 

 rectly used, for the latter, it may very well serve for the Bamboo. There 

 is no end of raking up old uncertainties about classical names. 



