JASMINUM PFIMULINUM. 



Ming," a Chinese flora, which is rich in 

 details concerning Yunnan plants, as the 

 author was for several years governor 

 of that province and paid much atten- 

 tion to local plants. I have not found, 

 unluckily, any reference to the Jasmine, | 

 but was rewarded in my search by the 

 discovery of a picture of Primula JVil- 

 soni, which was discovered by me near 

 Szemao, and is now in cultivation at 

 Kew and at Coombe Wood. I am in- 

 clined to think that the Yunnan jas- 

 mine is simply a variety of jf. nudiflo- \ 

 rum, which has been imported by the 

 Chinese from the north. The differ- 

 ences between the two plants are slight, 

 amounting merely to an increase in the 

 size of the flowers and of the leaves. 

 Moreover,in the Yunnan plant the leaves 

 have become evergreen, as might be ! 

 expected from the much milder winter j 

 which prevails at Mengtse and Szemao, 

 two places situated practically on the 

 tropic. 



I have compared the specimens of 

 the two forms in the Herbarium at 

 Kew, where there are, however, no spe- 

 cimens of wild y. nudiflorum; and the 

 leaves, stem, bracts, and calyx seem 

 alike. The only difference lies in the 

 corolla, which is larger in primulinum, 

 and its tube appears to be shorter in 

 proportion to the expanse of the limb. 

 y. nudiflorum occurs in the wild state 

 in theTsing-Ling mountains in Shensi, 

 where it was observed by Pere David, 

 who reports it to be common on both 

 sides of the range. The species was dis- 

 covered in i 83 i by Bunge, who found 

 it in cultivation at Peking ; but he erro- 

 neously identified it with y. angulare, \ 



Vahl. In 1844, Fortune sent it home 

 from Shanghai, where he found it in 

 Chinese gardens and nurseries, y. pri- 

 mulinum may be considered for garden 

 planting as a distinct plant, but it will 

 be interesting to watch it and see if it 

 reverts, when cultivated in colder parts 

 of England or Scotland, to the decidu- 

 ous habit. That it bears the winter at 

 Coombe Wood is to my mind a con- 

 firmation of the view advanced above, 

 that it is really a variety of nudiflorum, 

 which is a wild species growing in a 



region with a really cold winter. 



AUGUSTINE HENRY. 



ENGLISH NAMES FOR TREES 

 AND PLANTS. 



Even those who feel the need of English names 

 for garden and woodland things are, perhaps, 

 too apt to assume that the systematic Linnaean 

 name is the only one with any claim to science 

 (i.e., knowledge). But that is clearly an error, 

 as many of our English names are very much 

 older, more interesting, and have been bound 

 up with the history of our people and their 

 language for ages. So that the study of these 

 names may be as much a part of " science " as 

 any other. The botanical names of the system 

 now followed have only been in use during a 

 few generations, and as such they have no more 

 claim to be exclusively "scientific" than many 

 of the names in our own language. In thisview 

 we find that we are supported by the opinion 

 of Dr. C. A. Prior, author of a very interesting 

 book, on the popular names of British plants : 

 — "There are botanists who look upon Eng- 

 lish names as leading to confusion and a nuis- 

 ance, and who would gladly abandon them 

 and ignore their existence. But this is surely 

 a mistake, for there will always be ladies and 

 others, who, with the greatest zeal for the 

 pursuit of Natural History, have not had the 

 opportunity of learning Greek or Latin, or 

 have forgotten those languages, and who will 

 prefer to call a plant by a name that they can 

 pronounce and recollect. We need but to ask 

 ourselves what success would have attended 



