Plant Names 
291 
plants instead of calling them by homely ones such 
as familiar flowers are known by in older lands. 
Two more foolish claims could scarcely be made. 
* 
In the first place, the doings of fashionable folk in 
large cities are fortunately far from being a national 
index or habit. Secondly, in ancient lands the peo- 
ple named the flowers long before there were bota- 
nists, here the botanists found the flowers and named 
them for the people. Moreover, country folk in 
New England and even in the far West call flowers 
by pretty folk-names, if they call them at all, just as 
in Old England. 
The fussing over the use of the scientific Latin 
names for plants apparently will never cease; many 
of these Latin names are very pleasant, have become 
so from constant usage, and scarcely seem Latin ; 
thus Clematis, Tiarella, Rhodora, Arethusa, Cam- 
panula, Potentilla, Hepatica. When I know the 
folk-names of flowers I always speak thus of them 
— -and to them; but I am grateful too for the scien- 
tific classification and naming, as a means of accurate 
distinction. For any flower student quickly learns 
that the same English folk-name is given in different 
localities to very different plants. For instance, the 
name Whiteweed is applied to ten different plants ; 
there are in England ten or twelve Cuckoo-flowers, 
and twenty-one Bachelor's Buttons. Such names 
as Mayflower, Wild Pink, Wild Lily, Eyebright, 
Toad-flax, Ragged Robin, None-so-pretty, Lady's- 
fingers, Four-o'clocks, Redweed, Buttercups, Butter- 
flower, Cat's-tail, Rocket, Blue-Caps, Creeping-jenny, 
Bird's-eye, Bluebells, apply to half a dozen plants. 
