Januarj S, 1888. ] 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
15 
gardener’s craft would be better recognised than it -was at present, as 
the first necessity for the sustenance of the country. (Applause.). 
A most pleasant and enjoyable evening was spent, a number of the 
members contributing songs, &c. 
PLANT NAMES. 
[A paper read at a meeting of the “ Chiswiek Oardeneri.’ Mntnal Improvemrnt Asso¬ 
ciation.” on Deoember Slst, 1887. By P. W.Burhidge, F.L.S.,M.B.I.A.. Cnrator Trin' 
Coll. Botanical Gardens, Bnblin; formerly of the B.H.S. Gardens, Chiewiok; and 
also of the Royal Gardena, Eew.] 
( Continued from, page 571 last vol.') 
On the walls of a room in the great temple of Kamac at Thebes 
are sculptured portraits of plants foreign to Egypt, and these have 
been by some archasologists supposed to be the oldest botanical 
illustrations in existence. It appears that Tuthmosis, Tuthmes, or 
Thothmes II. (of the XIII. dynasty), made an expedition, or campaign 
rather, into Arabia, and he brought back to Egypt many trees and 
plants of that country, and these he caused to be carved on stone after 
the custom of the time. Here, in fact, you have a royal plant hunter 
and botanist to boot something like Solomon. These sculptures not 
only represent the plant or tree, but the leaves and fruits or seed-pods 
are shown separately after the fashion in modern botanical illustrations. 
Paper casts of this work have been made by Mr. W. Flinders Petrie, the 
well-known archasologist, and these copies will no doubt soon appear in 
our national museums. Dr. Mahaffy, the professor of ancient history in 
the University of Dublin, tells me that the time of Tuthmes III. may 
with tolerable certainty be placed between 1600 and 1600 B.C., that is to 
say about or a little after the epoch of Moses, and so you will perceive 
that these stone portraits of plants are well-high coeval with those 
inscribed “tables of stone” which Moses set before the Israelites after 
leaving Egypt, and which had been handed down to us as the ten com¬ 
mandments. But practically speaking we must take it for granted that 
botanical studies and nomenclature began with the Greeks, as we shall 
presently see, and from them passed to the Romans, and because this 
was so, the botanists of Europe in following the literature of Greece and 
of Rome, naturally enough gave us names in what were the learned 
languages of the time. Now-a-days you will find Latin plant names 
even in the more recent botanical books of Japan, but alongside these is 
always given the popular or Japanese nomenclature. As to Greek, I 
have heard a prophecy that in less than half a century it will be no 
longer taught in colleges or in the higher schools. I hope this may be 
true, and that our youth may be led to learn the living languages of 
Europe instead, and with these get a sound technical and commercial 
education which will enable us to compete for a time with the well- 
taught men from other nations in Europe who flock to our shores. 
The late Dr. John Hill Burton in the introduction to his work, “ The 
Book Hunter,” strips Greek nomenclature of some of its rags and leaves 
it pretty much in the condition of the “ Greek Slave.” What he says of 
it is this : “ No doubt the ductile inflections and wonderful facilities for 
decomposition and reconstruction make Greek an excellept vehicle of 
scientific precision, and the use of a dead language saves your nomen¬ 
clature from being confounded with your common talk. The use of a 
Greek derivative gives notice that you are scientific. If you speak of 
an acanthopterygian, it is plain that you are not discussing perch in re¬ 
ference to its roasting or boiling merits ; and if you make an allusion to 
monomyarian malacology, it will not naturally be supposed to have 
reference to the cooking of oyster sauce. 
“Likemany other meritorious things, however, Greek nomenclature is 
much abused. The very reverence it is held in, the strong disinclination 
on the part of the public to question the accuracy of anything stated 
under the shadow of a Greek name, or to doubt the infallibility of the 
man who does it, makes this kind of nomenclature the frequent pro¬ 
tector of fallacies and quackeries. It is an instrument for silencing 
inquiry, and handing over the judgment to implicit belief. Get the 
passive student once into palaeozoology, and he takes your other names 
—your ichthyodorulite, trogontherium, lepidodendron, bothrodendron— 
for granted, contemplating them, indeed, with a kind of religious awe or 
devotional reverence. If it be a question whether a term is categore- 
matic (a word that may be logically used by itself as a term), or is of a 
quite opposite description, and ought to be described as subcategore- 
matic, one may take up a very absolute, positive position without finding 
many people prepared to assail it. . . . The great erect stone on the 
moor which has hitherto defied all learning to find the faintest trace of 
the age in which it was erected, its purpose, or the people who placed it 
there, seems as it were to be rescued from the heathen darkness in which 
it has dwelt, and to be admitted within the community of scientific 
truth by being christened a monolith (a single stone). If it be large 
and shapeless it may take rank as an amorphous megalith (a shapeless 
big stone), and it is on record that the owner of some muirland acres, 
finding them described in a learned work as ‘richly megalithic’ (richly 
big-stoned) became suddenly excited by hopes which were quickly ex¬ 
tinguished when the import of the term was fully explained to him. 
Should there be any remains of seulpture on such a stone it becomes a 
lichoglyph (a earved stone) or a hieroglyph (sacred sculpture), and if 
the nature and end of this sculpture be quite incomprehensible to the 
adepts they term it a cryptoglyph (secret carving), and thus dignify by 
a title of honour the absoluteness of their ignorance. The vendors of 
quack medicines and cosmetics are aware of the power of Greek nomen¬ 
clature. . . . But perhaps the confidence in the protective power 
of Greek designations reached its climax in an attempt made to save* 
thieves from punishment by calling them ‘ kleptomaniacs ’ (insane- 
thieve.s).’’ 
Ruskin, in his “ Queen of the Air,” says ; “ I wish they (the philo¬ 
sophers) would use English instead of Greek words. When I want to 
know why a leaf is green they tell me it is coloured by ‘ chlorophyll,’’ 
which at first sounds very instructive ; but if they would say plainly 
that a leaf is coloured green by a thing which is called ‘ green leaf,’ 
we should see more precisely how far we had got. However, it is a 
curious fact that life is connected with cellular structure called proto¬ 
plasm, or, in English, ‘ first stuck together,’ whence conceivably through, 
deuteroplasms or second stickings, and tritoplasms or third stickings, we 
reach the highest plastic phase in the human pottery, which differs from 
common china ware primarily by a measurable degree of heat, developed, 
in breathing, which it borrows from the rest of the universe while it 
lives, and which it as certainly returns to the rest of the universe wherv 
it dies.” 
In a word, is it not time to be serious and to utter a “ not loud but- 
deep ” protest against verbal mountebanks who seek to hide their igno¬ 
rance and to beguile us by very often needlessly using Greek or Latin 
names ? Botanists, however, may the more especially be excused if they 
have evinced a leaning towards Greek names, seeing that two of the- 
early philosophers or physicians of Greece wrote on plants at a period 
when learning was at a low ebb in Europe generally. The first was. 
Theophrastus of Eresius (b.C. 374—286), and the second was Dioscorides 
(a.d. 40), and to the writings of these two men much attention was at. 
one time given by early European and British botanists, and tons of 
editions and translations of their books, with countless commentaries 
have been made. 
When we come to the Roman or Latin authors we find Cato (b.c„ 
150), or six centuries after the foundation of Rome itself, writes of 
gardens, which he says, “ should have a southern aspect and be well 
supplied with water,” and he is very particular in his directions for 
the cultivation of Asparagus. He also men^-ions seven varieties of 
Olive, six good varieties of Grapes, four or five Apples, five of Pears,. 
six of Figs, three of Nuts, and also alludes to Pomegranates. Services^ 
Quinces, and Plums. But it is Pliny the Elder (A.D. 23-79) who is most 
explicit as to the fruit and other importations into the Roman gardens 
of his time. Even at this early date in the Christian era the Romans 
possessed nearly all the fruits grown by us to-day, if we except the 
Orange (introduced into Italy in the fourth century), and the Pine 
Apple. The Fig and Almond had been brought from Syria, the Citron 
from Media, the Pomegranate from Africa, Apples, Pears, and Plums- 
from Armenia, the Apricot from Armenia or Epirus, the Peach from 
Persia, Cucumbers and Melons possibly from Armenia or Persia, while 
Cherries had been brought from Ceras, in Pontus, about seventy years 
before Christ. Pliny mentions many more varieties of fruit than Cato, 
so we may rest assured that the industry of a century had made many 
improvements in Roman gardening. Cato and Pliny may be taken as- 
examples of the many other writers on gardening among the Romans,, 
and it is scarcely necessary to state that our earliest English works on 
gardening were at least framed on Latin models even if not often 
directly copied or translated from them. But with the advent of 
Englishmen like Turner (1638-1568), Gerard (1597), and Parkinson 
(1623-40), and the first of European plant collectors of any note, Carolus 
Clusius, whose great “ Historia ” was published in 1601, botany in 
England began to spread and take deeper rootage among all intelligent- 
people, and the ground was ploughed ready for the good seed of 
Bacon (1561-1626) and of Evelyn (1620-1706) to take root and bring 
forth that harvest of a hundredfold which it is now our privilege to- 
enjoy. 
Of modern and living botanists and their works it was originally not 
my intention to speak, but it is scarcely possible in a paper professedly 
dealing with plant names to avoid allusion to the “ Genera Plantarum ” 
of Sir Joseph Hooker and the late Mr. George Bentham. So far as 
genera are concerned it is a colossal work, and it will be the standard 
authority for many years to come. It is not easy to comprehend the 
stupendous amount of labour such a work must have absorbed, and it 
could only have been produced by the most acute and experienceep 
botanists situated in the best botanical environment in the world. 
There are t»o other works, and these are cheap enough for every gar¬ 
dener to possess, and possessing them he will be pretty well prepared) 
to meet any question which may arise on botany or on garden plants-. 
These books are “ Treasury of Botany,” second edition, by the late 
Dr. Lindley and Mr. Thomas Moore; and “ Johnson’s Gardeners’ Dic¬ 
tionary,” as revised by Mr. N. E. Brown of Kew. A very valuable, but 
more expensive “ Dictionary of Gardening,” in four volumes, is now 
in course of preparation by Mr. George Nicholson of Kew, and 
this has the advantage of many fine wood engravings. Loudon’s 
“Encyclopaedia of Plants,” now and th-n to be had for about a. 
sovereign, second hand, is also very valuable, although somewhat out. 
of date ; and those who are beginning the study of botany should see 
Sir J. D. Hooker’s “ Primer,” published for a shilling by Macmillan 
and Co. Two valuable works besides the above are Cassell’s “ Popular 
Gardening” and “ Epitome of Gardening,” by Dr. Masters and the late 
Mr. Thomas Moore, which is the best of all cheap (5s.) manuals on 
modern gardening. As a book of reference on English cultivated fruita 
there is nothing approaching the latest edition of the “ Fruit Manual ” 
by Dr. Hogg. Barron’s “ Vine Book ” (second edition) should be in the 
hands of all interested in Grape culture, and the English translation of 
Vilmorin’s “ Jartlia Potagere,” by Mr. Robinson, called “ The Vegetable 
