166 



it was apparently done. Dr. Greene credits himself with having 

 relieved the genus " of a name so cheap and ill-made as Riibaccr." 

 As another botanist has placed that name among the hybrid 

 words,* I shall try to meet both accusations at once. 



The word Rubacer'xs composed of two good Latin words, Riibiis, 

 raspberry and Acer, maple ; hence it is no hybrid of two languages. 

 In making compound words, the most common usage in the 

 Latin language was to take the stem of the first word (in this case 

 Rub-), and to insert the connecting vowel -/-, between the two 

 components, if the second part began with a consonant. If it 

 began with a vowel, the -i- was omitted. Hence Rub-acer is 

 formed according to Latin usage. Perhaps it might have been 

 better to reverse the order and to call the genus Acer-i-7'ubus ; 

 but as this is very awkward to pronounce, Rub-accr was preferred. 

 The reason why Accrinibiis might have been better, is that in 

 Latin as in modern languages the modifying word was usually 

 placed first in compounding words ; but this was not always the 

 case. If I prefer to call the old Rubus odoratiis L. a raspberry- 

 maple instead of a maple-raspberry, I am well within my rights. 

 Dr. Greene's claim that I have named it " Red Maple " can not 

 be taken seriously, for in Latin red maple would always be Acer 

 rubrnvi, and Dr. Greene knows just as well as I, that if a com- 

 pound word should be formed, in which the first component 

 should be riiber, red, it would be very bad orthography to leave 

 out the -r. If I had intended to make a name meaning red- 

 maple (observe, not red maple), it would have been Rubracer 

 instead of Rnbaccr. 



No, with Dr. Greene the "ill-making" was not so much this, 

 as the fact that he dislikes compound names formed by combin- 

 ing two generic names, as he shows in a preceding article. f 

 To him Cytisogenista, Lilionarcissiis , Malvalcea, Sidalcea, Conio- 

 selinum, Ammoselinuni, etc., are " ill-made " and " cheap." Yet, 

 Dr. Greene has made at least one such name, Sclioeiwcrambe.X 

 Perhaps he had some other reason for making that name ; but 



*T. Holm, Ont. Nat. Sci. Bull, i : 36. 1905. 



f Leaflets i : 202. 



X Pittonia 3 : 124. 1896. 



