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JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
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the r(muted British species of Salix, there are no fewer than twenty-two 
named after persons or places, and not one of the names is so good as 
that devised by a humble botanist who, finding a plant he had never 
seen before, and having no means of ascertaining its name, called it, 
because found by the roadside, Rhodum Sidum, as good a name perhaps 
as Georgium Sidus, and one that might be adopted and pass current 
without raising a laugh. In Curtis’s “ Botanical Magazine ” for the 
year 18C5 there are figures and descriptions of sixty-six plants, of which 
no less than twenty-eight derive their specific names from places or 
^rsons ; or, to be more particular, nine are named from the countries or 
districts in which they grow, and nineteen from persons. With all 
respect to the botanists, I must say that these nineteen names at least are 
frivolous. Geographical names are, as a rule, not good. Very many of 
the plants found in Japan, and named (with how little effort!) 
Japonica, are also found in China ; and species that inhabit both the 
old and new world cannot with any propriety at all have geographical 
names assigned them. If books of authority like the “Botanical 
Magazine ’’ are thus open to animadversion, what shall we say of trade 
catalogues 1 What shall we say. I quit the unwelcome theme, and 
leave the trader in plants at his own free will to commemorate his 
relations, friends, and customers cx officio, for the simple reason that we 
are not ^und to trade names, but we are bound to the names in the 
“ Botanical M.agazine,’’ and to all that come to us with the stamp of 
authority. In the “ Botanical Magazine ’’ during the year 1888 there 
were publish^ sixty-one plants, of whieh thirty-one have specific names 
commemorative of {persons, three are records of geographical location, 
and twenty-one are founded on visible characters, and may be regarded 
as descriptive. The secret cannot be concealed that the bestowal of a 
personal or geographical name saves time, and demands absolutely no 
talent; but for the bestowal of a good descriptive name a diagnosis is 
required, and it must be performed by a botanist familiar with the 
gGtius, and in a state of mind favourable to clear perception and 
discriminative comparison. But to name a plant in honour of some¬ 
body’s niece, aunt, ninth cousin, or grandmother is an easy task, and 
might almost be done by machinery. 
A generic name should cover all generic characters, and a specific 
name should clearly separate a plant from all other species in the genus. 
The thick or broad gauge men are lumpers, and see fewer species worth 
naming than the thin or narrow gauge men who are splitters, and usually 
see more species than common sense can acknowledge. The broad 
gaugers have increased at a rapid rate since Darwin gave a new interest 
to the generalising faculty, and put into the minds of men that all 
organic forms are transient and mutable. 
W hen new names are required, the structure and affinities should 
determine the boundaries of a genus ; and some distinctive characters 
of form or habit should determine the species. To name plants from 
their colours is bad practice. We have Digitalis purpurea alba, the 
white purple Foxglove, which is noc more rational than to say the white 
black cat. Nor is it consistent with the aims of science to adopt names 
that refleet injuriously or unpleasantly upon persons. Linnseus has 
himself condemned commemorative names, not by words but by deeds ; 
for he managed to convey a sneer, or even an affront, by his freaks of 
terminology. Sir J. E. Smith, who was a purist in this matter, refers to 
the Linnean name Buffonia tenuifolia as “a satire on the slender 
botanical pretensions of the great French zoologist, as the Hillia para¬ 
sitica of Jacquin, though perhaps not meant, is an equally just one on 
our pompous Sir John Hill.” But he does not approve of such satires ; 
he says “ they stain the purity of our lovely science ; if a botanist does 
not deserve commemoration, let him sink peacefully into oblivion. It 
savours of malignity to make his crown a crown of thorns, and if the 
application be unjust it is truly diabolical.” Mr. Alcock has put the 
case reasonably, thus—“ Those names that point out a decided specific 
character are the best, as Arenaria trinervis, Chlora perfoliata, Epipactis 
ensifolia, and the like.” 
Ttie greatest sinners against propriety in naming plants are the 
orchidists, for they ignore all settled rules, they repudiate the require¬ 
ments of common sense, they make a law for themselves which they do 
not define, and which whenever they do define it, will convict them of 
frequent and flagrant violation. We must wait for the report of the 
Committee that has taken the subject in hand, and has been toiling 
almost time out of mind, and meanwhile pray that they will not vex 
the shade of Linnaeus to the extent of compelling him to get out of his 
grave to terrify the evildoers, but if they follow the example of Reichen- 
bach it will be impossible to predicate to what it may lead them. The 
great orchidist was a notorious splitter and species maker, but his fol¬ 
lowers in this country accepted all his decisions without question, and 
never wavered in faith until the man was dead ; then, finding that he 
had resolved we should not have his collection, his worshippers made the 
sad discovery that he was but a wooden god after all, but being dead 
and buried they were denied the gratification of knocking him to 
pieces. 
[Report of Orchid Nomenclature Committee was issued simultane¬ 
ously with the reading of this paper.] 
The raising of hybrid Orchids has brought about a curious crisis in 
botanical nomenclature. The binomial system may be said to be 
nowhere in face of the new array of facts. Take a few examples. I 
will begin with the actual Cymbidium eburneo-Lowianum, Cymbidium 
giganteum, and Cymbidium pendulum. Then I will effect a cross 
between Cymbidium giganteum and Cymbidium pendulum, and the 
selected offspring shall be called Cymbidium giganteo-pendulum. This 
last 1 will cross with Cymbidium eburneo-Lowianum, and the result 
shall be a beautiful Orchid with the interesting name Cymbidium 
eburneo Lowianum-giganteo-pendulum. And again we have Dendro- 
bium Wardiano-aureum, and we have Dendrobium crassinode Wardi- 
anum. I will cross these, and secure a new beauty to be called 
Dendrobium-aureo-crassinode-Wardianum. We shall have to manipulate 
generic names in an equally elegant manner; we cross Lselia with 
Cattleya, and obtain a new genus to be called Lelio-Cattleya, and we 
cross in an opposite direction to obtain Cattleya-L.-elia. The broad 
gauge man will take the hint to keep garden varieties apart from species, 
and to make more sure of genera than to allow of such barbarities. To 
him it will suffice that the new genus has no existence as such, because 
the parents w^ere necessarily not generically distinct; and you do not 
need that I should acid that, however convenient the distinctions 
between Cattleya and Lnelia may be, they have not the force of dividing 
lines for scientific purposes. The orchidists are endeavouring to turn 
the world back to what we may speak of as pre-Linnean times, and 
they substitute descriptions for names, and where a definition is 
wanted they provide a confusion. In passing through a village the 
other day I halted to light a cigar, and the voices of children arrested 
my attention. I heard one speak in a pretty manner a bit of rhyme 
apparently designed to puzzle a Scotch metaphysician, but it appeared 
to me to fit nicely to the new problem of the identification of an OrchidV 
The rhyme ran thus ;— 
Supposin’ I was you. 
And supposin’ you was me ; 
And supposin’ we all was somebody else, 
I wonder who we should be. 
I submit that we are not to have descriptions in the place of names,, 
and that while the binomial system suffices for all ordinary purposes it 
should be maintained in its original integrity. The use of supple¬ 
mentary names is allowable only as representing varieties, and may be 
framed on a variety of plans with almost unlimited latitude, consistent 
with propriety and convenience. Between liberty and licence in the 
bestowal of names, common sense will never fail to discriminate, and we 
must systematically repudiate offensive, deceptive, ridiculous, sarcastic 
and “jaw-breaking” names, for it is not well that the language of the 
herbarium or the garden should provoke laughter or the contempt oF 
mankind. Very often our plant names do both to the injury of science 
and the disgrace of the inventors of the ugly and unpleasant names. 
In naming varieties, and especially garden plants, I repeat there 
must be much liberty allowed, and here ample room may be found for 
commemorative names, and for such as may be termed fanciful and 
playful. But common sense will object to freedom in this region irre¬ 
spective of the class of subjects to which the names are applied. For 
such things as Dahlias, Pelargoniums, and Phloxes, descriptive names 
are rarely wanted. Within the limits of propriety any names will 
serve for subjects that are, generally speaking, of only temporary 
interest. But in such a group of plants as the varieties of Hex aquN 
folium, for example, we seem to need descriptive names, those of a 
personal or geographical character being inappropriate. We have a 
Ho’ly appropriately named Laurifolia, and the name is useful as a guide 
to the plant. Another is named Latispina. This is an admirable guide, 
for the name exactly corresponds to the character. Suddenly in the 
midst of Hollies we find Madame Briot, where a lady should not be in 
the midst of spines and sombre colours, and other characters that have 
nothing especially feminine about them. In full persuasion of the 
immense aid good garden names might prove in che identification of 
varieties that have somewhat of the solidity and permanence of species, 
I bestowed some care in the classification and nomenclature of the Ivies, 
and in the year 1872 published a monograph of the species. In this I 
adopted or invented descriptive names for all the varieties I could 
obtain ; and you will find them entered as lobed, arrow-leaved, wrinkled, 
round, angular, and so forth. The personal names I abolished without 
hesitation. For example, I found an Ivy bearing the name of Glymi; 
and as the Glym would not light me to the character, I named it 
Tortuosa, because it has a twisted leaf. One that I found bearing the 
sweet name Rhomboidea obovata latifolia I observed had a leaf that 
might be likened to the Greek letter D, and 1 called it Deltoidea. The 
world did not accept my proposals with joyful thanks, for in truth I 
was pretty freely abused in the papers for altering the names. ButL 
allow it all to pass without complaint, and now there is a growing 
tendency to admit that common sense may by gracious permission have 
something to do with the naming of garden plants. It goes without 
saying that the men who knew absolutely nothing about Ivies were the 
most free of their abuse ; and I never condescended to tell them as I 
might have done, that many of the names they condemned as new and 
ridiculous, were good old names that I sought to re-establish in the place 
of later names that were altogether inappropriate. Had they looked 
through the book they might have discoverer! this ; and the discovery 
would have saved them from a display of ignorance. But you know, 
critics of books do not read them ; they cut them and smell the 
paper knife, and whatever odour the printer imparts to the book, . 
determines the critics’ estimate of its merits. 
If you ask me what is to be done, I can only answer that I have- 
more faith in public opinion than in any of our organised societies, 
councils, and committees. In 1800 I proposed the constitution of a 
Board of Nomenclature by delegations from all the societies supposed to 
be interested in the subject. It is doubtful if such a board could be 
constituted, considering how local and academic the so-called learned 
societies for the most part are. As the case stands anyone has power to 
