FLORA 



AND SYLVA. 



Vol. II. No. 10.] 



JANUARY, 190 4. 



[Monthly. 



ENGLISH NAMES FOR TREES. 

 Lord Annesley's lately published book 

 on his collection of trees and shrubs pre- 

 sents us, as so many books have done, 

 with a whole set of Latin names for each 

 tree, no care being taken to give a good 

 English name for any of them, not a diffi- 

 cult task, and, as we hope to show, a 

 useful one. This course is merely follow- 

 ing the conventional way of botanists 

 who imagine that all men take the same 

 interest in Latin names and synonyms 

 as they do themselves; whereas the facts 

 are quite the other way — bookmen, on 

 the one hand, used to museums, collec- 

 tions and herbaria, and the vast majo- 

 rity of even educated people on the other, 

 who are interested solely in the beauty 

 and the uses of things, and to whom 

 names in an unknown tongue are of no 

 meaning but usually a source of ridicule. 

 These names may, however, be used in 

 such a way as to be a bar to knowledge, 

 and that is certainly their effect in our 

 country. In France and Germany it is 

 not so : there the best books on garden 

 and woodland work give native names 

 for each tree or plant, which does not 

 in the least preclude the use of the Latin 

 name in its right place. Names are arti- 

 ficial things, adopted merely for con- 



venience, and of far less importance than 

 the things to which they refer,as is shown 

 by the fact that many people, as they get 

 on in years, forget names altogether, 

 while retaininga clear memory of things. 

 The multitude of Latin names, where 

 they are unnecessary, means that women 

 and children, and those occupied with 

 outdoor work, are barred by such no- 

 menclature ; while, on the other hand, 

 good English names often tell a great 

 deal to simple people, e.g., such names 

 as Servian Spruce and Lebanon Cedar, 

 which at once convey their meaning. 

 As to the science of it, there is no more 

 of science in the use of one language 

 than another. As for the Latin names 

 themselves they are often hideous in 

 structure, and often (so scholars tell us) 

 invented by those whose learning is at 

 fault. There are also numberless false 

 names like Glyptost7~obus and Retino- 

 spora — the unfortunate name for the 

 Great JapaneseCy press( C. obtusd) which 

 is still kept up in books and lists. If 

 the true Latin names are a bar to us, 

 how much more harmful are these false 

 and needless ones. Then there is the 

 endless multiplication of varieties with 

 cumbrous Latin names, of which we see 

 an outrageous example in the Kew List 



