TAXODINE 197 
cannot help thinking that, under these circumstances, 
this rather heterogeneous group might have been 
invested with a title that showed a little more ori- 
ginality and marked a little more individuality. 
But, not content with overrating the capacity of the 
ordinary human intelligence to analyse long names, 
these learned pundits of a name-bestowing fame have 
among the inner ranks of the Taxacee themselves, 
in all conscience, truly piled Pelion on Ossa. They 
have rung the changes with a vengeance upon the 
tossed-to-and-fro names derived from the once more 
or less mono-meaning Greek word rdfos, and sown 
confusion among those who have little time or op- 
portunity to attempt the profundities of the art 
botanical. 
If a student were called upon to define genealo- 
gically, according to Cocker, which for the purpose 
we may define as Kew Lists, the Common Yew Tree, 
he would have to write it down as a Taxad, of the 
scientific and generic name Taxus, of the sub-tribe 
Taxez, of the tribe Taxinez, of the family Taxacee, 
etc., a definition which sounds rather like an answer 
to a question set by some stony-hearted examiner 
in an Oxford Responsions school. 
But what matter? The self-taught tree lover can, 
if he so wish and as he often does, contrive to find 
and pursue a mitigated pleasure in the cult, without 
recourse to any attempt at unravelling such inner 
mysteries of the craft, and which we must acknow- 
ledge in all honesty the necessity of, even if at times 
we indulge in a cavil at their intrusion. 
From this genealogical point of view we must add 
that the Taxodinee are a tribe of the family Pinacee, 
and of the order of Conifere. Their situation as a 
tribe is adjoining the domains occupied by the 
Cypress and Araucarias, one on each side of them, 
and parenthetically we may say, that some members 
