150 REMARKS ON BOTANICAL \July, 



mone Pulsatilla and Astragalus hypoglottis from the Floras of the 

 chalk downs of Surrey as the result rather of their being over- 

 looked than of a peculiarity in their distribution, I am inclined 

 to believe that Anemone Pulsatilla, and I think I might include 

 the Astragalus, are rarely if ever found off the lower chalk for- 

 mation; and hence their absence on the chalk downs of the 

 Weald, where the lower chalk scarcely crops out at all. The 

 herbage on each of these two formations is markedly different, 

 especially in the old, unworked clunch-pits of the eastern coun- 

 ties, as Cambridgeshire, Suffolk, etc., where the Anemone is fre- 

 quently found raising its beautiful little purple head among the 

 long, wiry grass. Can any of your readers inform me if my 

 hypothesis is correct ? J. B. 



The counties assigned in the ' Cybele Britannica ' as stations 

 for the Anemone Pulsatilla are Berks, Oxford, Herts, Suffolk, 

 Cambridgeshire, Bedford, Northampton, Gloucester, Lincoln, 

 and York. 



KEMAEKS 

 On Botanical Glossaries and Nomenclature. 



Sir, — The subject of these remarks was suggested by a glance 

 at the glossary prefixed to the ' British Botanist's Field-Book,' a 

 work noticed at some length in the 'Phytologist' for June, 1857. 



Several scientific terms and phrases are sanctioned by com- 

 mon usage, and are convenient as briefly describing what must, 

 without their aid, be described by a sentence or periphrasis. 

 Where judiciously employed, they are conducive both to brevity 

 and precision. Their abuse only is the subject of the subjoined 

 animadversions. The following canons or rules, it is respectfully 

 submitted, might be generally observed in determining the expe- 

 diency of employing technical terms. First, that when a scien- 

 tific word has an English equivalent in common use, such equi- 

 valent should be used instead of the technical one. This practice 

 would be conducive to elegance of diction and to intelligibility. 

 Mr. Childs, in his ' Handbook,' professes to abstain as much as 

 possible from the use of technical terms, yet employs in his no- 

 menclature the terms hermaphrodite and diclinous quite unne- 

 cessarily, as our language has two words in common use which 



