PLANT NAMES 
179 
as we are aware, occurs in only one place in literature—in chap, xxii, 
of Hardy’s Far from the Madding Crowd, where in a long list 
of plants comes a mention of “ the black-petalled doleful-hells .” 
The Dialect Dictionary, which cites the passage and gives no other 
reference for the word, gives the somewhat obvious explanation that 
it was “ the name given to some kind of plant,” and it was not diffi¬ 
cult to conclude that Atropa was intended ; but the fact is established 
by one of Mr. Macmillan’s correspondents from Charmouth, where 
the name is actually thus applied—this confirmation from the county 
in which the story is laid is an interesting testimony to the distin¬ 
guished author’s well-known local exactness. 
The only thing to regret is the absence of the index to the scientific 
names of the plants in alphabetical order which was promised in the pre¬ 
face which introduced the first instalment of the serial issue, followed 
by the local names grouped under each. The omission is justified by 
the cost which such a list, unsuitable for the columns of a newspaper 
but invaluable for possessors of the volume, would entail. There 
seems, however, no reason why the blank page at the end of the book 
should not have been occupied by a list of the books quoted in the 
text, for which both readers and bibliographers would have been 
grateful. 
2. Plant Names is a very readable and on the whole accurate 
account of the Latin names of plants, in which a great deal of useful 
and interesting information is grouped under various headings— 
medicinal and commemorative names, names from use and from place 
of origin, classical and fancy names, and the like. There are intro¬ 
ductory chapters dealing with the history and principles of plant 
nomenclature and with spelling and pronunciation ; the final chapters 
deal with generic names—so far as these “refer to some peculiarity of 
the plant in its root, or stem, or leaf, or bloom, or seed, or smell, or 
general appearance ”—and with the more frequent specific names 
and their meanings : there is also a good index; the cover, however, 
is aggressively ugly. 
Here and there we come across statements which suggest that 
Archdeacon Lindsay is not fully acquainted with his subject: it is 
news to us that an International Committee, appointed by the 
Botanical Congresses, “assumes control over matters of priority 
and synonymy ” ; or that “ when a plant is found and named by two 
people about the same time, it becomes the duty of the International 
Committee to decide which name was given first, and that will 
be the plant’s true name, the other being reduced to a synonym ” 
(p. 21). There are far too many misprints: on p. 5 we have 
sibericus and madagascaresis : “ Mentresius ” and “ Townsefort ” 
(p. IS) are inexcusable; “ Cardamindum ” (p. 20); “ Soldmella ” 
(p. 74) ; “ flombundus ” (p. 82) ; “ Hippoplue ” (p. 35) ; “ Grevill/a ” 
(p. 43) are but a few of those which might be cited. We cannot 
agree that “ it is now becoming usual to drop the diphthongs ce and 
ce , and to write Spirea, Crategus” ; and the suggestion that Holly¬ 
hock “derived its name from the Holy Island, Lindisfarne, or from 
the saints of that isle, after whom it was called St. Cuthbert’s Kale ” 
I 
