SCIENCE. 



435 



SOME NEEDED REFORMS IN THE USE OF 



BOTANICAL TERMS.* 



Bv Charles E. Ridler, M.A., Master of High School, Kings- 

 ton, Mass. 



I. 



Seventy per cent of 700 examined species and varieties 

 of " flowering plants," and 65 per cent of all the " flow- 

 erless plants," as given in Mann's Catalogue, have differ- 

 ent names; 3646 "flowering plants '' and 178 "flower- 

 less " are given in the list. If to these per centages, 

 the names of the genera and orders be added, there will 

 be a total of more than 4000 different ones to be remem- 

 bered, east of the Mississippi ; and if collections are made 

 elsewhere, the number becomes appalling. Only 14 names 

 are used five times or more, and over 50 per cent are 

 used but once ; that is, among the flowering plants every 

 other name is new, and among the flowerless two out of 

 every three are new. 



Many of the specific names describe the plants as be- 

 ing " like" some other plant or thing, and both Latin and 

 Greek terms are employed to do this. Thus, over a hun- 

 dred different specific names were found ending in folium 

 or phyllon (leat), and oides (like) 1 Among some other 

 things noted are the following: Adjectives are frequently 

 used in their different degrees of comparison without any 

 meaning whatever ; there is a great diversity in the use 

 of proper names of persons, countries and States ; speci- 

 fic words are frequently found differing only in their end- 

 ings and not in their roots; one English word is often 

 described by several Latin, with only a slight difference 

 in meaning, and the question is whether one word might 

 not be used in place ot several given in a set 2 ; Greek and 

 Latin names exist with the same meaning; Greek and 

 Latin terms are used to describe the same plant ; double 

 specific names, and similar specific and generic 1erms are 

 common ; occasionally a term is employed which denotes 

 a specific difference far more common than it is used ; 

 and many compound and coined words of doubtful au- 

 thority 3 are scattered throughout the list — in all of which 

 there is a great need of reform. The plan is suggested, 

 at least in this country, and especially for use in the 

 school-room, of having in the study of botany nothing 

 but English words for the English-speaking race. If 

 Greek and Latin, however, are to be retained, they should 

 be kept in their purity. These reforms in the use of 

 botanical nomenclature are urged for the great mass of 

 tired students of both sexes, and their teachers, in the 

 United States, rather than for the eminent botanists and 

 horticulturists, who may remonstrate against any change 

 which will rob the science of its choicest literature. 



The Revue Industrielle, in a recent number, gives a 

 curious instance of the spontaneous galvanization of an 

 engine piston, which took place at Cette, Herault. The 

 boiler having become much encrusted, some scraps of zinc 

 were introduced to loosen the coating. Several days after- 

 wards, the piston began to work with difficulty ; when it 

 was taken out, it was found to be covered with a thick 

 coating of copper. This is supposed to have occurred from 

 the particles of zinc carried with the steam into the copper 

 steam-pipes forming a number of minute galvanic elements 

 in combination with the copper ; the vibration of the piston 

 then attracted the copper molecules to itself, whilst the 

 heat and the electric properties ot the steam are considered 

 to have facilitated their attachment to it. 



* Read before the A. A. A. S., Cincinnati, 1881. 



'With folium: Alismae, apii, alni, bellidi, delphini-ilici. myrti, 

 parnassi, primula, rosmarini, etc., etc. ; with pkyllon: tricho, argo, 

 chryso, lepto, rhizo, lefiido, etc., etc.; with oides: anemon-lunarin, 

 scirp, hesperid, cheiranth , melilot, etc., etc. 



3 Such as, Vulgaris, officinalis, vulgata, media, communis (common) ; 

 sylvestris, nemorosa, sylvatica and the like. 



3 The paper gave a long list of words used by botanists which cannot be 

 found in the lexicon, such as grandi flora, and other compounds of flos ; 

 arabisans, advensis, cucullaria, variolaris, calaria, asprellum, 

 tattri— folia and other compounds of folia: saline, alro-pur/urea, 

 and others. 



BOOKS RECEIVED. 



The Ancient Bronze Implements, Weapons and 

 Ornaments of Great Britain and Ireland, 

 by John Evans, D. C. L., LL. D , F. R. S., &c. 

 D. Appleton and Company, r, 3, and 5 Bond street, 

 New York, 1881. 



As Dr. Evans admits, the period covered by the 

 Bronze age cannot be fixed within a precise limit, es- 

 pecially for any particular country. Through the suc- 

 cessive stages of civilization, when the Stone period gave 

 way to that of the bronze period, and was succeeded by 

 the Iron, a long course of years must have passed, and 

 even in any particular district the change could not have 

 been sudden. 



There must, therefore, have been a time when in each 

 district the new phase of civilization was introduced, and 

 the old conditions had not been changed ; the three 

 stages of progress represented by the Stone, Bronze and 

 Iron periods, like the three principal colors of the rain- 

 bow, overlapping and intermingling one with the other, 

 through their succession. 



In discussing the chronological position of the bronze- 

 using period, the possible use of copper unalloyed with 

 tin, cannot be overlooked ; in fact the probability that 

 native copper may have continued for a lengthened per- 

 iod before it was discovered that the addition of a small 

 portion of tin rendered it not only more fusible but added 

 to its elasticity and hardness, must be apparent to all. 

 While dwelling on this point Dr. Evans points out that 

 even after the advantages of the alloy over the purer 

 metal were known, the local scarcity may at times have 

 caused so small a quantity of that metal to be employed, 

 that the resulting mixture could hardly be recognized as 

 bronze ; or at times the dearth may have necessitated 

 the use of copper alone, either native or as smelted from 

 the ore. 



Of this Copper Age, however, but feeble traces are to 

 be found in Europe, if, indeed, any can be said to exist, 

 but in India important discoveries have been made of 

 copper instruments; these, however, were accompanied 

 with ornaments of silver, which appeared to mitigate 

 against their extreme antiquity, as the production of 

 silver involves a considerable amount of metallurgical 

 skill, and probably an acquaintance with lead and other 

 metals. 



The most instructive instance of a Copper Age, as 

 distinct from one of Bronze, is that which has been dis- 

 covered in our own country, where we find good evi- 

 dence of a period when, in addition to stone as a material 

 from which tools and weapons were made, copper also, 

 was employed, and used in its pure native condition with- 

 out the addition of any alloy. The State of Wisconsin 

 alone, has furnished upwards of a hundred axes, spear 

 heads and knives formed of copper, and to judge from 

 some extracts from the writings of the early travellers 

 given by the Rev. E. F. Slafter, that part of America 

 would seem to have entered on its Copper Age long be- 

 fore it was first brought into contact with European civ- 

 ilization, towards the middle of the sixteenth century. 

 On some parts of the shores of Lake Superior native 

 copper occurs in great abundance, and no doubt at- 

 tracted the attention of the early occupants of the 

 ccuntry, who undoubtedly availed themselves of its 

 ductile property to produce spear-heads and other 

 weapons. 



To those who have supposed that iron, which is a 

 simple substance and easily produced from its ores, may 

 have been in use before copper ; the author replies, that 

 without denying the abstract possibility that in some 

 parts of the globe such might have been the case, he 

 considers that among the nations occupying the shores 

 of the Mediterranean — a part of the world which may be 

 regarded as the cradle of European civilization — not 

 only are all archselogical discoveries in favor of the sue- 



