The Snowdrop 



We next come to the name, and 

 in the whole vocabulary of plants it 

 will be difficult to find another which 

 goes so straight to its mark, and renders 

 so perfectly the distinctive character 

 and expression. Even the generic name 

 of Linnaeus, though designed like all 

 such for the purposes rather of science 

 than of poetry, is beautiful both in mean- 

 ing and in form. Galanthus — that is 

 to say, " Milk Flower," from FctXa avQo^ 

 — perhaps comes nearer to the actual 

 colour than even our native Saxon, and 

 expresses the softness and purity of the 

 blossom, as well as the glaucous milky 

 aspect of leaf and stem. We have all the 

 delicious clearness and purity of sound so 

 usual in Greek words ; and the termina- 

 tion "anthus," or "lanthus," seems pecu- 

 liarly well fitted to render the character 

 of many Endogens with a sharp, tapering, 

 lance-life form of leaf.^ This is not from 

 any accidental association with the word 

 "lance," but rather from both these words 

 being to a certain extent alike in ex- 

 pression.^ 



^ More especially adapted, if my feeling be correct, to 

 plants with lance-shaped leaves and a leafy stem, like 

 some of the garden Fritillarias. 



^ [A fanciful derivation, for which there is no authority. 

 There is no such word as "lanthus."— H. N. E.] 

 II 



