and the gender of the terminal generally settles the gende 

 word); however, as botanists have usually made thei 

 have for the sake of uniformity adopted that gender ; again, derivatives 

 of -eiSfc are rendered into adjectives ending indifferently in -es, -is, 

 and -eas, as thyrsoid^s, arctotidis, and thyrsoidow ; I have limited 

 myself to the first of the three; generally, the irregularities in the 

 nomenclature are very numerous : Pemtemon is masculine ; Platystemon, 

 neuter; Maxillaria porphyrostele, neuter; I'injtKh-pIm* macrurarpa, femi- 

 nine; 1 have corrected only the most glaring mistakes; many other 

 illustrations might have been given, but these are sufficient to indicate 

 the nature of the liberties taken, which do not in any case interfere 

 with the reference value of the index. 



I have also taken the liberty of printing adjectives derived from 

 the names of places or countries with the initial letters in Capitals, 

 for I observe that if "Mr. Smith" be rich enough to patronise plants 

 and their collectors or growers, botanists delight to honour him by 

 entitling some remarkable plant " Smithianus," but if America be 

 only the special habitat of a plant, and that is thought to be a 

 sufficient reason for designating it after that continent, it appears 

 in the pages of the "Botanical Magazine" in "lowercase"" as 

 " americanus," which is not a fair distribution of honours; and when 

 a variety is distinguished in the text by a Greek letter only, where 

 a word sufficiently characteristic could be found in the description, 

 it has been substituted, for instance, Gladiolus Uandus var. 7 is in the 

 index G. blandus purpureo-albescens." 



The index of Synonyms contains only those in the text, with 

 all their irregularities undisturbed and many descriptions from the 

 older authorities which could not be condensed into names omitted; 

 it would be more valuable if more complete. A friend of mine was 

 so sanguine as to think some assistance in this part might be given 

 by the authorities at Kew, more especially as the head of that estab- 

 lishment is editor of the magazine; on application a reply was 

 received expressing doubts of the expediency of publishing the index 

 at all without corrected names and synonyms ; but stating no assistance 

 could be given, and adding that to be a creditable performance 

 the index should be revised by a competent botanist; it has not 

 been submitted to this revision, as I am not a botanist, but only a 

 lover of plants; however, I hope those who avail themselves of my 

 labours will be as lenient as possible in discrediting my attempt to 

 serve them. I cannot help adding that it would have been as well 

 if the editors of the ma ich an index even as 



