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STUDY OF BOTANY. 
When Dr. Withering published his " Botanical Arrangement," he employed 
English names — not only for individual plants, but for the parts of fructification — 
calling the stamens chives, and the pistils pointals : but, as is observed in the 
Chronicle, — " Many Latin names have, from custom, been adopted into the 
English language, and no wisdom would be shown in attempting to alter such 
words as Dahlia, Crocus, Ixia, or even Orchis. Others again are so easily sounded 
and so much in harmony with the English tongue, that nothing could be gained 
by interfering with them ; such are Penea, Hugonia, Parkia, &c." 
We go farther than this, and assert that much would be lost were the Latin 
terminations abandoned in the case of any names derived from persons who have 
introduced or raised new plants, as for instance, Clarke, \Am\cea, Adansonitf. 
Each of these words is elegant, and perfectly simple and comprehensible ; it would 
be a barbarism to substitute solely the proper names without the referential affix. 
But, as suggested, the substitution of the terms water-lilies for Nyinphaeaceae, of 
crowfoots for Eanunculacese, &c; and those of mallow-teorfe for Malvaceae ; citron- 
worts for Aurantiaceae ; nettle- worts for Urticaceae, &c, must tend to uniformity. 
There is a farther confusion in the classic words, which might well be avoided, 
and to great advantage. Thus, in Ranunculacea?, which includes the Clematideae, 
the Anemoneae, the Helleboreae, the Peoniae, we have also to distinguish more 
minutely the Ranunculece or true crowfoots,— confusion worse confounded ! We 
owe much to Dr. Lindley for thus announcing a new, but unpublished work, 
called the Vegetable Kingdom, and hope that ere long the student of Botany will be 
enabled to profit by its perusal. 
But it is not the Nomenclature alone, to which is to be ascribed the difficulty 
of acquiring botanical knowledge. So long as the Linnaean System was the object 
of study, there was a something tangible which the understanding could grasp. 
The arrangement was, in the main, artificial, and so the author avowed it to be ; 
but when attempts were made to erect a system founded upon a natural relation- 
ship or accordance of structure, it was perceived that immense difficulties were to 
be surmounted ; and that, after all which could be hoped for under existing cir- 
cumstances was accomplished, there would remain no purely natural system at all. 
Let us not be mistaken for opposers of science or improvement : far from it ; 
we desire, and welcome its steady advances. At present, owing to the perplexity 
of the natural systems, whether of Jussieu, De Candolle, or our own Lindley, 
Botany, physiological and structural, is now exclusively the science of the learned ; 
the gardener, the amateur, the industrious man, cannot attain to it. And so com- 
plicated is its machinery, so vast, so intense must be the compass of memory 
to grasp and retain the myriads of its subjects, that we despair of ever witnessing 
its general application. 
To revive the science of Botany is the object of our solicitude : if we cannot 
refine, let us simplify ; and, therefore, sooner than permit its lapse into desuetude, 
let us recur to Linnaeus, and gain such instruction as we may — pleasurably— 
