November 16, 1917] 



SCIENCE 



483 



versity. The entire income of the Institute is 

 to be devoted to research. Professor Foley re- 

 tains charge of the physics department of the 

 university, but is relieved of all teaching 

 duties. 



Dr. H. D. Senior, head of the department 

 of anatomy of New York University and Belle- 

 vue Medical College, is in England engaged in 

 military medical work. Dr. F. W. Thyng is 

 acting professor of anatomy and head of the 

 department in Dr. Senior's absence, and has 

 charge of histology and embryology. Dr. E. 

 E. Hoskins is acting assistant professor and is 

 in charge of gross anatomy and neurology. 

 Dr. J. L. Conel and Dr. Margaret M. Hoskins 

 are instructors in histology and embryology 

 and Dr. C. Hield is instructor in gross anat- 

 omy and neurology. The school year began 

 with 190 students in the first -year class, an in- 

 crease of 13 over last year. 



W.^EREN G. Waterman has been appointed 

 assistant professor of botany at Northwestern 

 University, having completed his work at the 

 University of Chicago, where he received the 

 degree of doctor of philosophy at the August 

 convocation. 



Professor D'Aecy Wentworth Thompson, 

 professor of natural history. University Col- 

 lege, Dundee, has been appointed to the chair 

 of natural history at St. Andrews, vacant 

 through the retirement of Professor W. C. Mc- 

 intosh. 



DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE 



BOTANY AND COMMON NAMES OF PLANTS 



To THE Editor of Science : Those who favor 

 using the common names of plants, instead of 

 the technical names, probably do not realize 

 the confusion that would result in most in- 

 stances, where exactness is necessary or desir- 

 able, if their suggestions were followed. 

 Imagine the pharmacist relying solely upon the 

 common names in selecting such drugs as man- 

 drake, bitter-sweet, coltsfoot and sarsaparilla. 

 Some of his patrons would surely be poisoned 

 and others would die for want of the proper 

 remedy. Scientific names were given to plants 

 for the express purpose of facilitating exact 

 reference to them and it is a mistaken kindness 



to teach children and others the common names 

 under the impression that the technical terms 

 are too difficult. Any child who can be taught 

 to say rhinoceros, chrysanthemum or rhododen- 

 dron can be taught the scientific names of 

 plants and thereby advanced on the road to 

 knowledge, instead of being plunged into a 

 morass of inexact and untrustworthy common 

 names, however poetic. As a matter of fact 

 there is as much poetry and folk-lore in the 

 scientific names as in the common ones. Con- 

 sider Campanula, Phlox, Asplenium and Heli- 

 anthemum. Are these less euphonious or 

 poetic than such " common " names as Judge 

 Daly's sunflower, Stewardson Brown's Indian 

 turnip, or Brainerd's cat's foot? There is un- 

 doubtedly much literary value in the common 

 names of plants, but the same can not be 

 claimed for the " English " or vernacular 

 names with which we have been deluged of 

 late. A common name is a name that is in 

 common use for the plant in some part of the 

 world and therefore entitled to consideration, 

 but an " English " name is too often merely a 

 poor translation of the scientific name and 

 therefore better left in the original. Common 

 names or, if you please, vernacular names, are 

 still being coined — Christmas fern, foam 

 flower, boulder fern, Darwin tulip, and obedi- 

 ent plant are good illustrations — but who ex- 

 pects such " English " names as repand-leaved 

 erysimum. Hooker's musinon, Gregg's hap- 

 loesthes, and tall flat-topped white aster to ever 

 become common? In the opinion of many 

 good observers the declining popularity of bot- 

 any as a high-school study is due in large meas- 

 ure to the efforts of those well-intentioned but 

 misguided popularizers of plant study who 

 either by assertion or implication give to the 

 scientific study of plants a reputation for diffi- 

 culty which it does not deserve. 



It is well to reflect, therefore, that common 

 names can not be made by fiat. If a plant has 

 a common name, we may well use it in the re- 

 gion where the name is common and therefore 

 understood, but to imagine that there is any 

 special sanctity in the common names as such 

 and to insist upon their use on all occasions is 

 as absurd as for the scientist to use technical 



