Y1 
INTRODUCTION. 
‘ Cornliill Magazine’ of July 1866, who says apropos of plant- 
names : — 
“ Science cannot, at present, afford to throw hard words at pro- 
vincialisms. Too often, in her nomenclature, has she failed to 
interpret ISTature ; too often given us only the skeleton leaf 
instead of the flower. A long list of provincialisms might he 
given, where by a word a whole train of associations is aroused, 
and the close relationship of all things shown .... Many of 
our most expressive terms are fast dying out, .... as schools 
are built, and schoolmasters increase, so will the old words 
perish in the struggle with the new.” 
A conviction that the study of the common or vulgar names 
applied to plants by no means “introduces us to a language of 
meaningless nonsense,” but is in reality of the highest interest, induced 
ns first to commence the collection of the archaic and provincial names 
of plants, and afterwards to put these old-world words on per- 
manent record in the pages of this Dictionary, ere they should perish 
“in the struggle with the new.” A systematic study of the “ vast 
vocabulary” of English Plant-Names soon convinced us that there 
are, as a matter of fact, very few which signify “ that which is false,” 
and still fewer “ which signify nothing at all ; ” and even of these it 
is probable, nay, certain, that it is only our own ignorance of the old- 
world language, the old-world thought, and the old-world associations, 
that prevents our knowing the meaning of every old-world name. 
This vast vocabulary had a significance for those who first invented 
the names, and would have a meaning for us also, if we could only 
look far enough back into the past to be able to trace them to their 
origin. Of the names, and they are many, of which there is no doubt 
as to their derivation and meaning, the appropriate character is at 
once seen; and this holds good even with the “ bit of old sow,” a 
name which happens to be of particularly happy application. The 
blue leguminous plant is Melilotus coerulea, which, according to 
IMorton’s ‘ Cyclopaedia of Agriculture,’ “ has a singularly porcine 
odour, . . . and is the plant which gives the peculiar flavour to 
Schapziger cheese.” 
