"15-8 Lindlci/s Theory ofHorticuUnre, 



surely no one can contemplate such wonderful mechanism as i^ 

 here laid bare before us, without being struck with astonish- 

 ment. The spongioles and youngest parts of roots imbibe 

 moisture from the soil, and are found to be rich in nitrogen, 

 a gas, a supply of which is " indispensable to their healthy 

 condition." Roots have not the power of refusing deleteri- 

 ous substances, and may be poisoned in the same manner as 

 animals. In the growth of the stem, Dr. Lindley makes a nice 

 distinction between the cellular tissue and woody fibres ; the 

 former being the only portion of a plant which grows laterally. 

 He proposes, for the sake of simplicity, to call it the horizontal 

 system ; this latter, which increases by the addition of new tubes, 

 he calls the perpendicular system. On the same principle he 

 would confine the word hybridising to the admixture of species, 

 and crossing or cross breeding, to that of varieties. A uni- 

 form adherence to this improvement in nomenclature is certainly 

 desirable. Mr. Herbert suggested another improvement, bearing 

 on this subject, which has been overlooked by Dr. Lindley and 

 others, yet the present confusion in the naming of hybrid pro- 

 ductions demands serious attention to it. Mr. Herbert says, 

 *' It would very much tend to preclude confusion, if all substantive 

 genitive cases were abandoned to cultivators for the distinction of 

 their varieties, and the names of all species confined to adjectives."* 



* " Very great confusion is produced by the nurserymen giving a Latin name 

 to every garden seedling, and men of science should set their faces decidedly 

 against the practice, which M. DeCandolle very inauspiciously sanctioned with 

 respect to hybrid plants. Where garden varieties are much multiplied, florist's 

 names ought to be used, as with hyacinths, tulips, &c. Hybrid plants which 

 are found of spontaneous growth in the wild abodes of their parents, should 

 rank as species marked Hyb. Sp., or spontaneous hybrid ; those of compli- 

 cated or uncertain intermixtures in our gardens should be marked as Variety 

 Garden Hybrid. It would very much tend to preclude confusion, if all sub- 

 stantive genitive cases were abandoned to cultivators for the distinction of 

 their varieties, and the names of all species, and permanent local varieties, 

 confined to adjectives. With this view I venture to alter all the proper names 

 adopted in this order to an adjective form, writing Caldasiana for Caldasi ; 

 and I earnestly press the convenience of this arrangement on the consideration 

 of botanists, by which it may be understood at once that B. Caldasiana must 

 be a species, or permanent local variety, and that B, Caldasi would designate 

 a seminal or hybrid variety ; and, as it will be vain to urge nurserymen not to 

 dignify their productions with Latin names, I wish to request them to confine 

 themselves to genitive cases of proper names, names of romance or heathen 

 deities, or of substances, as flammae instead of flammeus, eboris instead of 

 eburneus ; and, if the botanical editors of popular periodical works will attend 

 to this suggestion, we shall get rid of the overwhelming confusion which 

 garden productions are creating. At present, in our best botanical catalogues, 

 every seedling Camellia japonica, or Hippeastrum, is dignified with a Latin 

 adjective name ; and the endless garden intermixtures of calceolarias are named 

 like the natives of South America, very much to the disadvantage of science 

 Cultivators will have an ample fund of names if all genitives are given up to 

 them; and the change of the few genitives that have been used in the scientific 



