NATURE 



20 = 



T I 



Mil RSDAY, AUGUST 17, 1911. 



A POLYGLOT DICTIONARY OF PLANT NAMES. 

 A Dictionary of Plant Names. By H. L. Gerth van 



Wijk. Part i., pp. xxiv+710. Part ii., pp. v + 



711-1444. (Haarlem: Published by the Dutch 



Society of Sciences. 1909-1910.) 



'HIS is one of those books that cause wonderment 

 -I- and admiration — wonderment, because it will be 

 used, we should say, by comparatively few persons, 

 and admiration of the author, who has devoted so 

 much of his life to the service of the few, the work 

 having been some twenty-five years under compilation. 



"It is so planned that it will enable one to find the 

 name by which a plant is known in four modern 

 languages, if one knows the Latin name, and also 

 to find the Latin name, if only the name in one of 

 these four languages is known." 



The languages chosen are English, French, and 

 German, "to which the editor naturally added Dutch 

 names." 



In the first volume, now under review, the Latin 

 names are alphabetically arranged, followed by the 

 names used in English-speaking countries, or used in 

 works written in English ; by the names used in 

 French-speaking countries, or used in books in the 

 French language, &-c. The author's aim has been to 

 include the vernacular names of wild and cultivated 

 plants, of varieties and subvarieties, of parts of plants 

 now or formally (formerly) used in medicine or indus- 

 trial! v, and of flowers and fruits; also the scientific 

 names given to parts of plants which are, or were, used 

 in medicine, &c, &c. This, of course, is an immense 

 task, and a task that could scarcely be accomplished 

 in a critical manner by one person. Therefore, if we 

 say that Mr. Gerth van Wijk has achieved only a 

 partial success, it must not be regarded as unkind or 

 ungrateful criticism. To be generally useful a polyglot 

 dictionary of any subject should be compiled on 

 methodical and discriminating principles. The 

 casual inquirer requires assistance where the student 

 can find his way, and the mere heaping up of names 

 is of little service to him. By casual inquirer we 

 mean a person who has to consult a dictionary in 

 connection with his occupation, profession, or pleasure, 

 and for whom it is necessary that the information 

 offered should be presented in an easily intelligible 

 and practical form. 



Now, it may be assumed that nearly everybody of 

 the reading community comes under this category. 

 A selection of examples of treatment will be of more 

 service than general criticisms. As a component of 

 pasture herbage, and as a weed, Achillea millefolium 

 is one of the commonest herbaceous plants in the tem- 

 perate regions of the northern hemisphere, and it has 

 a correspondingly large number of names. In addi- 

 tion to the common English names, milfoil and yar- 

 row, about thirty other English names are cited ; they 

 are mostly, however, of quite local application. These 

 are 'arranged in alphabetical order, beginning with 

 NO. 2 l8l, VOL. 87] 



arrowroot, and continuing with the equally unfamiliar 

 and unused bloodwort, camil, cammick, cammock, 

 carpenters'-grass, dead man's daisy, devil's nettle, 

 dog daisy, and so on. Then follow the French names, 

 about equal in number, and the German, occupying 

 a solid column, and numbering upwards of one 

 hundred and fifty ! Passing the less numerous Dutch 

 appellations, we come to the officinal Latin designa- 

 tions of parts, as capitula achilleae, folia millefolii, 

 &c, and nearly one hundred German names in rela- 

 tion to medicinal properties, some of them repetitions 

 from the main list. 



With all this great wealth of German names there 

 is nothing to show which are in common use, or 

 generally accepted as book names. No doubt a very 

 large proportion of these names are either book 

 names or of quite local use, and many of them mere 

 dialect variants, of interest only to the etymologist. 

 We have not Pritzel and jessen's "Die deutschen 

 Volksnamen der Pflanzen " before us at present ; but 

 Mr. Gerth van Wijk seems to have copied everything. 

 The same in English ; but although we miss all refer- 

 ence to Holland and Britten's "Dictionary of English 

 Plant Names," we think the author must be indebted 

 to it. Selecting another common plant, the daisy; 

 there are four columns of foreign names, mostly 

 German and Dutch. The dandelion occupies another 

 two pages, and in this way the 1444 pages are filled 

 with names without distinction, save that those in 

 commoner use are printed in spaced type. 



Of course, an author is at liberty to make the book 

 of his mind, and it is perhaps scarcely legitimate to 

 suggest that he should have done something else ; 

 but if he had taken the popular names (not translated 

 names) from the leading " floras," pharmacopoeias, 

 and publications on economic botany, he might have 

 produced a useful work. We are told by the author 

 that the second volume is to contain the popular 

 names in alphabetical order, with the Latin names 

 appended. Has he estimated, we wonder, the amount 

 of expansion these solid columns of names will 

 undergo when each one begins a separate line? Well, 

 the pagination would be tripled, at least! It should 

 be added that what the author has set himself to do 

 he has done very well. Errors are not prominently 

 frequent, but there are names puzzling enough, and 

 some apparently impossible. The nomenclature of the 

 " Index Kewensis " has been followed so far as pos- 

 sible for the Latin names, and the position is this : 

 knowing the Latin name of a plant, it is easy to 

 arrive at the lists of popular names; but supposing 

 it is wished to find the equivalent of poppy, apart 

 from its Latin name, in French or German, the 

 dictionary does not help us; nor will the second 

 volume supply this kind of information. Indeed, to 

 attempt this now in the author's plan would extend 

 the work beyond imagination ; yet, after all, this is 

 just the kind of information that most of us want, 

 and turning up common names, such as daisy and 

 poppy, in ordinary French and German dictionaries, 

 the ordinary equivalents are found. 



W. BOTTING HEMSLKY. 



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