74 European Ferns. 
historical association, has no other English name ; the Bracken, as we have already seen, 
is scarcely better off : and yet one would have thought that all these were sufficiently 
common and striking plants to have attracted a good deal of attention. It would seem, 
speaking generally, that spring flowers are the richest in vernacular names. Coming after 
the barrenness of winter, and appearing usually in great abundance, it is natural that they 
should force themselves more clearly upon the notice of the casual observer than those later 
blossoms which make their appearance in a field already occupied ; and so it is that we 
find not only such odd plants as the Lords-and-Ladies ( Arum maculatum ) and the Purple 
Orchis ( Orchis viascula) with scores of quaint and varied English names, but even such 
ordinary-looking flowers as the Lady’s Smock ( Cardamine pratensis ) and the Stitchwort 
( Stcllaria Holostea) with a goodly roll of titles. The 
absence of blossoms, and the uniform green hue of the 
fronds, may be considered to explain the paucity of 
popular fern-names : it must be admitted, however, that 
the ferns are more than compensated for this neglect 
by the number and variety of titles which have been 
showered upon them by scientific men. This absence 
of popular vernacular names for ferns seems equally 
noticeable in other languages, so far as the literature of 
the subject enables us to judge. One or two ferns, 
indeed, have such names in French and German, but 
■ — as is the case among ourselves — this is so markedly 
the exception that it can only be regarded as proving 
the rule. 
The name Blechnum, in its Greek form, blechnon , was 
employed by Dioscorides. It is the ordinary Greek 
equivalent for a fern. The specific name Spicant is, 
however, a difficult one to explain ; indeed, it may be 
doubted whether any certain explanation of it is possible. 
It may be observed that it is spelt with a capital initial 
letter, and this distinction is reserved in botanical nomen- 
clature for two classes of specific names — those which 
are commemorative, or taken from the names of people, 
and those which at one time ranged as generic or 
substantive names. It may be well to explain, for the benefit of those not specially 
acquainted with scientific nomenclature, that the Latin names of all natural objects are made 
up of two parts — the first being called the substantive or generic name, and the second the 
trivial, adjectival, or specific name. Thus, in Blechnum Spicant , for example, Blechnum is the 
substantive or generic, and Spicant the trivial or specific name. Certain rules or canons have 
been laid down for the guidance of those naming plants — some of them proposed by Linnaeus, 
who conferred an incalculable boon upon scientific men, whether readers or writers, by 
systematising nomenclature, and by establishing the law that no animal or plant should receive 
a name of more than two words ; others, comparatively recently, at a Botanical Congress, by 
M. Alphonse De Candolle. It may be objected by some that this is a small matter for 
legislation, and we may be reminded of the axiom “ de minimis non curat lex;" but order is 
essential in small things as well as in great, and readers of scientific journals will notice how 
