xvi Introduction. 



and important synonyms are quoted to show that they belong- 

 to certain plants, and that a plant may, in some instances, 

 bear either of two names with equal propriety, though, 

 generally speaking, the one adopted by the writer who has 

 made that particular class of plants his study is the one to be 

 preferred. It was not thought desirable to encumber the work 

 with the authorities for each name, but where diverse species 

 have received the same name from different authors, the 

 authority is given for the cultivated form or forms. It is the 

 general practice to give garden varieties trivial names, such as 

 those of noted personages, or English or French names denoting 

 some property or peculiarity. And the names of hybrid plants 

 are usually prefixed by a *, to distinguish them from wild 

 forms. For several reasons, the use of Latin and Greek names 

 is more properly restricted to wild forms, but more especially 

 as an indication of the origin of the plant in question. 



Accent. To those unacquainted with the dead languages, 

 and especially Latin, many of the names given to plants ap- 

 pear almost unpronounceable ; and as we give the derivation 

 of most of them, explaining their signification, so we have also 

 marked the syllable on which the accent falls, to indicate their 

 pronunciation. All the letters are pronounced? including the 

 final e, and they are commonly sounded, according to their 

 position, as in ordinaiy English words. But some people 

 affect what is presumed to be the correct pronunciation, accord- 

 ing to the Latin language, though there is a wide differ- 

 ence of opinion and usage on this point. With the exception 

 perhaps of the broad sound of the letter a, and the short sound 

 of the letter i, it is safer to pronounce them as English words, 

 subject of course to the difference in accent. There are seve- 

 ral ways of marking the accented syllable, but the method 

 adopted in this work is as simple as any yet devised. Some 

 of the names are not correctly accented, because the accents, 

 having to be let in between the lines, are so apt to get dis- 

 placed. The sign of accent rises from the vowel in the direc- 

 tion of the following consonant, when that is sounded with it ; 

 or in the direction of the preceding consonant, when the 

 following consonant does not belong to the accented syllable. 

 Thus, Anemone elegans, Adonis vemalis, and Hdlebovus 



