INTRODUCTION. 
IX 
A conviction that the subject thus popularly treated would occupy 
a far greater amount of space than we had at first supposed, grew 
upon us as our stock of names accumulated ; and the idea of such a 
work was, at any rate temporarily, abandoned. But we Avere anxious 
that the result of so much labour should be rendered available for 
workers in the same field ; and it resulted in a determination to issue 
our collection of plant-names in a dictionary form. 
Nothing quite similar has hitherto been attempted in this country ; 
for Dr. Prior’s work chiefly includes recognised book-names rather 
than such as are in the mouths of the country people ; indeed, he 
expressly states that he omits ‘‘ provincial Avords that have not found 
their way into botanical Avorks.” We have included not only the 
vernacular names which are (so far as Ave know) unpublished, and 
others AAdiich occur in such dictionaries as those of Halliwell and 
Wright, and in the glossaries and vocabularies of various counties 
and districts, including all Avhich, up to the present time, have been 
-published by the English Dialect Society ; but also the names by 
Avhich British plants are mentioned in the Avorks of the older botanists, 
many of Avhich, although then in actual use, are noAV altogether dis- 
carded. We purposely exclude names Avhich have been deliberately 
coined by living or recent writers, of which numerous examples may 
be found in Mr. Bentham’s ‘ Handbook of the British Eiora ’ ; nor 
do Ave include the bare translations of Latin names AAdiich occur in 
Syme’s ‘ English Botany ’ and other standard Avorks, but which 
have no claim Avhatever to be regarded as English, being, as Dr. 
Seemann observed, “often quite worthless renderings of scientific 
names, not such as are used by the people.^ ‘Eour-leaved Polycarp ’ 
and ‘ Opposite Chrysosplene,’ ^ as English equivalents for Polycarpon 
tetrap)]iyUum and Chrysosplenium opposUifolium may be taken as 
examples of the class of name to which Ave refer. We have also 
purposely excluded a few names which, though graphic in their 
construction and meaning, interesting from their antiquity, and even 
yet in use in certain counties, are scarcely suited for publication 
in a work intended for general readers. 
' ‘Journal of Botanj’-,’ 1869, p. .334. 
’ Bentham’s ‘ Handbook of the British Flora.’ 
