No. 66. J 
[December, 1884. 
dmilka, 
A QUARTERLY RECORD OF CRYPTOGAMIC BOTANY 
AND ITS LITERATURE. 
ON FRIES’ NOMENCLATURE OF COLOURS :* 
An examination of the epithets used by him in describing the 
coloration of the Agaricini. 
By Henry Thornton Wharton, M.A. 
The subject of colour-names is so vast and intricate that in the 
following paper I have confined myself to the consideration of 
those only which occur in Fries’ description of the Agaricini in his 
“ Hymenomycetes Europaei.” Even in this restricted field I have 
found nearly 200 names of colours, although, with one or two 
exceptions, I have avoided reference to compound names ; if I had 
considered the complete list that I originally made I should have 
had to describe about 840. Perhaps I have omitted some few as 
it is, for I have had to go over some 20,000 lines of concisely- 
written Latin to find those that I have gathered together for 
examination here. 
In so long a list of names it is fortunate that not every one 
requires separate consideration. I have enumerated not only the 
colour-names used for descriptive purposes by Fries himself, but 
also most of those used as specific. And in making specific names 
there is a natural tendency to use a colour-name absolutely synony- 
mous with another, simply from the fact of the most obvious one 
having been already used. For instance, a describer wishes to 
name a white species Agaricus albus ; but when he finds that name 
is preoccupied, he names his species Ag. candidus. Still we need 
not conclude that he had the strict classical Latin differences of 
the two words in his mind’s eye ; he probably never thought that 
Ag. albus was so named because it was of a dead white, nor in 
speaking of Ag. candidus need he have meant to imply that it was 
of a glistening white, as Cicero might have done. This exigency 
has burdened the list of colour-names with a good deal of useless 
lumber, but the principle is one that, in the interpretation of specific 
names, must never be forgotten. 
* Read before the Woolhope Naturalists’ Field Club, Oct. 13, 1884. 
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