A Word for Books 



simpler just to call the pretty things bluets ! The 

 truth is, my dears, that the Latin names make a 

 herbarium look very learned ; and when you col- 

 lect one I hope you will take great pains to have the 

 plants properly labelled. But what would your poets 

 do with Houstonia carulea in their verses ? I do 

 not think such terms are suitable for the finer uses 

 of life and literature ; so I hope you children all 

 will take pains to learn the common names of the 

 flowers. I only vrish you could tell me ever}- one ; 

 but perhaps someone will yet make a dictionary of 

 them. 



I do not think that more misleading coun- 

 sels can ever have been conveyed in a par- 

 agraph as short as this. 



In the first place, it implies that, as a 

 class, the scientific names of plants are less 

 agreeable to the ear than the vernacular 

 names. But is milkwort prettier than poly- 

 gala, or woad-waxen than genista, or tick- 

 trefoil than desmodium, or false-indigo than 

 baptisia, or false-mitrewort than tiarella ? 

 Which would a poet prefer to say — sweet- 

 gimi or liquidambar, pepperidge or nyssa, 

 fetid-marigold or dysodia, sneeze-weed or 

 helenium, shin-leaf or pyrola? And would 

 he really object very much even to claytonia 



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