Art Out-of-Doors 
or houstonia ? Of course a list pointing the 
other way might be compiled as easily as 
this one could be greatly extended. I do 
not mean to say that all scientific plant- 
names are musical and all vernacular ones 
are ugly ; only that the balance of beauty is 
perhaps in favor of the scientific names, and 
that it is certainly foolish to arraign them as 
a whole from the euphonic standpoint. 
It is still more foolish, however, to imply 
that a hard and fast line can be drawn be- 
tween the two classes of names. If we refuse 
to be “scientific,” what shall we call a 
dahlia, or an aster, a wistaria, a fuchsia, an 
azalea, a chrysanthemum, a rhododendron, 
or a sassafras ? Must we call an arethusa 
and a calypso each simply an orchid to avoid 
scientific terminology? And, again, is 
calypso or arethusa a name unfit for poetic or 
any other “ fine ” kind of use ? 
The children who read this paragraph ought 
to have been given very different lessons. 
They should have been told that no line can 
be drawn between the two classes of plant- 
names ; that sometimes the scientific name 
is perfectly familiar and common and, in- 
328 
