54 



cists and almost certain criticism from those botanists with 

 whom he does not agree, yet a few lines on the subject may not 

 be out of place. 



No matter what system of pronunciation may be followed, 

 the American botanist is always affected by certain peculiarities 

 of the English language, and these must be mentioned first. In 

 our language, in every word of more than one syllable, with the 

 possible exception of some compound words, one or more sylla- 

 bles receive the peculiar explosive stress known as accent. The 

 usage of our language also demands that not more than two 

 unaccented syllables be adjoining. This leads to the develop- 

 ment of secondary accents in most polysyllabic words and 

 makes words without such accents difficult to pronounce, as 

 anonymously and inexplicable. Secondly, the stress of accent is 

 in most words begun and ended by a consonant sound, even 

 though these sounds must often be borrowed. from the adjacent 

 syllables and in some cases even from the next word. The ac- 

 cented syllable then consists, in actual usage, of two conson- 

 ants and a vowel sound, no matter whether this agrees with the 

 rules of syllabification or not. Thus we regularly say e-cow'-omy 

 and din-tip' '-athy . Thirdly, a definite quantity is given to the ac- 

 cented vowels, while the unaccented ones are wholly or partially 

 slurred into a general sound of short u or short i. Thus American 

 is ordinarily pronounced u-mer'-ucun (not u-murr-ucun, as some 

 of our English cousins believe). These three tendencies are so 

 firmly implanted in the English language, both in England and 

 America, that they affect the pronunciation of botanical names. 



With these peculiarities of our language in mind, it is seen 

 that the pronunciation of such names depends chiefly upon the 

 proper location of the accented syllables, upon the quantity 

 given to the vowels in them, and upon the sounds given to the 

 consonants. 



In general, there are two methods of procedure open to us. 

 We may follow the classical pronunciation according to the 

 rules taught in our schools, or we may regard the names as 

 merely technical English words, on a par with molecule, car- 

 buretor, microtome, or endosperm, and apply English pronun- 

 ciation accordingly. 



There are several reasons why classical pronunciation should 

 not be followed. While almost all scientific names are of latin- 



