Ylil 
INTRODUCTION. 
Bachelor's Buttons ; so that if we adopted Cuckoo-flower, Cowslip, 
or Bachelor’s Buttons, as recognised English hotanical names, they 
would convey a very inadequate notion of the plants intended. All 
attempts which have at times been made to establish a systematic 
English instead of Latin nomenclature have resulted, and must result, 
ill complete failures. 
The object, then, of collecting and studying the English names 
of plants, is not to introduce a system of English nomenclature to 
the botanical student ; but to rescue from oblivion a vast number of 
old-world words, derived from a variety of languages, and therefore 
often carrying us back to the early days of our country’s history, and 
to the various people who, as conquerors or colonists, have landed on 
our shores, and left an impress on our language. Many of these 
old-world words are full of poetical associations, speaking to us of 
the thoughts and feelings of the old-world people who invented 
them. Others tell us of the ancient mythology of our ancestors ; of 
strange old medicinal usages ; of superstitions now almost forgotten ; 
they appeal, in short, not to the botanist, but to the antiquarian and 
the philologist ; and form a not unimportant chapter in the history of 
our language. 
As early as the year 1865 one of the compilers of this Dictionary 
contributed to ‘ Science Gossip ’ an article on Local Names, which, 
probably, gave to both of us the first idea of making a collection of 
the vernacular names of plants. This we began to do systematically 
about the year 1868, and it was very soon apparent to us that the 
subject was not only one of considerable interest, as indeed Dr. 
Prior’s important volume on ‘ The Popular Names of British Plants ’ 
had already made evident, but also that a large number of names 
were in use amongst the agricultural population which were not 
generally known, and were still unrecorded. Our intention was, 
therefore, to publish a work which should in some degree supplement 
Dr. Prior’s volume by including provincial words which had not 
found their way into botanical books, and various others which he 
designedly excluded ; and which should aim rather at being a 
readable resume of what was known upon the subject, than an 
alphabetically arranged list of names with their scientific equivalents. 
