70 OUTDOOR STUDIES 
the familiar use of scientific names seems an 
affectation. But here, where many native flow- 
ers have no popular names at all, and others 
are called confessedly by wrong ones, — where 
it really costs less trouble to use Latin names 
than English, — the affectation seems the other 
way. Think of the long list of wild-flowers 
where the Latin name is spontaneously used by 
all who speak of the flower: as, Arethusa, 
Aster, Cistus (“after the fall of the cistus- 
flower”), Clematis, Clethra, Geranium, Iris, 
Lobelia, Rhodora, Spirzea, Tiarella, Trientalis, 
and so on. Even those formed from proper 
names — the worst possible system of nomen- 
clature— become tolerable at last, and we for- 
get the godfather in the more attractive name- 
sake. When the person concerned happens to 
be a botanist, there is a peculiar fitness in the 
association; the Linnaa, at least, would not 
smell so sweet by any other name. 
In other cases the English name is a mere 
modification of the Latin one, and our ideal 
associations have really a scientific basis: as 
with Violet, Lily, Laurel, Gentian, Vervain. 
Indeed, our enthusiasm for vernacular names 
* is, like that for Indian names of localities, one 
sided: we enumerate only the graceful ones, 
and ignore the rest. It would be a pity to 
Latinize Touch-me-not, or Yarrow, or Gold 
