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PREFACE 



This book is intended to be used by that large public 

 who wish to know by name the attractive shrubs culti- 

 vated in parks and private grounds, but who are actually 

 afraid of anything called botany. This fear comes from 

 the great number of scientific words used and the con- 

 stantly changing names in botanic books. We cannot 

 help using rose, spirea, hydrangea, chrysanthemum, azalea, 

 and rhododendron, though they are scientific, because long 

 use has rendered them familiar. It would be well for us 

 if we could lose our fear of old, well-given names in other 

 cases. 



The authority of the great Linnaeus has not in one 

 hundred and fifty years prevailed upon us to call syringa 

 bushes philadelphus or lilac bushes syringa, so it is fool- 

 ish for us to try to change old names. The names by 

 long use are the ones which w^ill endure; and if our scien- 

 tific nomenclature is to be constantly changing, the result 

 will be that the public will have nothing to do with any 

 names but common ones. There was a time Avhen we 

 said, and with some truth, that common names were only 

 local — that there were too many of them applied to the 

 same plant and too many different plants with the same 

 name. Ninebark and Virginia creeper are almost uni- 

 versally used common names ; let some of us try to find 

 and remember the scientific names given in the different 

 manuals printed in the twentieth century for these plants ! 



There ought to be a time limit after which names used 

 should not be changed for any "rule," — names which 

 have generally found their way into manuals and cata- 

 logues for, say, twenty years should remain the names for 



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