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362 CORREbPO:JfDENCE.
names worth recording, and I think they ai'e right ; for I saw many plants I
slioiild not have seen, especially among the EriccB, but by asking for them by such
names given in the Catalogue ; and it is wonderful, on looking these over, to find
how well the system is carried out. It is, of course, imperfect, but remarkable for
l>€ople with no written language ;
they do not speak Malay or Javanese, but a
peculiar dialect called Sundanese." (Kew Journ. Botany, vol. vii. 1855, p. 80.)
lu a recent conversation, Motley's remai'ks as to the accuracy of vernacular
names my friend Dr. J. E. de Vrij fully bore out, mentioning, at the same
time, that in Java there was a collective name for the genus Ficus
(Kiara), and tlie only error the natives made was in applying it to a species
of Quercus {Q.fagifor>nis,Jimgh. in Seemann's ' Bonplandia,' 1858, p. 83, cum
icon.*), exceedingly Ficoidal in habit, and found by himself and Dr. Junghuhn.
Though native names are frequently the only clue we have to tlie origin of a
product, yet at present there is much need for caution with regard to their use ;
traders, as a rule, applying them almost indiscriminately. Many plants, too, have
distinctive names for the individual, and its different parts and product {e.g.
Cocos nucifera, L.), these names being frequently quoted indifferently, thus
giving rise to numerous mistakes. The change of country, of cither native
tribes or civilized immigrants, has a great influence on vernacular nomencla-
tiu-e, the names of the plants of their native country being bestowed on those
of the new. Dr. Ernst, in his valuable paper on the " Medicinal Plants of
Venezuela and their Vernacular Names" (Seemann's 'Journal of Botany,'
Vol. III. p. 143), says, "... In Venezuela a plant often bears very different ver-
nacular names. . . . The names I have collected are either of Indian or Spanish
oi'igin. At Caracas the Indian names are generally so corrupted that their
original form could be traced only by a good Indian scholar, whilst in the in-
terior, where the Spanish influence was less felt, many vmcorrupted Indian
names are still in use." He obserTCs that the Spanish names are of three kinds,
viz.—1, Names introduced with the plants from Europe ; 2, Names of European
plants transfen-ed to American ones, which in habit or use bear some resemblance
to them ; and 3, Names newly invented, and not used for any plant before,
seldom having an intelligible meaning.
Native names, at present, are scattei'ed through innumerable publications,
and a vmiversal nomenclature would be an immense boon. To make such a
work as complete as possible, it would be desirable that lists of plants, with
their vemacidar names, should be solicited from botanists of the localities with
which, they are best acquainted. These should si)ecify, witli regard to such
names, localities where used,\ynonymy, if any, whether pure or introduced,
derivation and meaning, whether applied as a collective or individual term, or
to the parts or product of a plant. I shall be glad to receive any such lists,
other than British.
Di\ Scemann has referred to my labours in economic botany. Whatever
value, however, they may have, much of the credit belongs to him as editor of
* This does not seem to be taken up by De Cand. (Prod. xvi.). Is it identical
with Castanopsis argentea ?—Ed.