GETTING JC^AINTED WITH THE TREES 



with the "common" names, when there is such 

 a pleasing scientific cognomen available ! 



By the way, why should people who will 

 twist their American tongues all awry in an 

 attempt to pronounce French words in which 

 the necessary snort is unexpressed visually and 

 half the characters are "silent," mostly exclaim 

 at the alleged difficulty of calling trees and 

 plants by their world names, current among 

 educated people everywhere, while preferring 

 some misleading "common" name? Very few 

 scientific plant names are as difficult to 

 pronounce as is the word "chrysanthemum," 

 and yet the latter comes as glibly from the 

 tongue as do "geranium," "rhododendron," 

 and the like. Let us, then, at least when we 

 have as good a name as liriodendron for so 

 good a tree, use it in preference to the most 

 decidedly "common" names that belie and 

 mislead. 



I have said that this same tulip-tree — 

 which I will call liriodendron hereafter, at a 

 venture — is a notable American tree, peculiar 

 to this country. So believed the botanists for 

 many years, until an inquiring investigator 



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