Excerpt from English Plant Names: From the Tenth to the Fifteenth Century The fascination of Plant-names has its foun dation in two instincts, love of Nature and curiosity about Language. Plant-names are often of the highest antiquity, and more or less common to the whole stream of related nations. Could we penetrate to the original suggestive idea that called forth the name, it would bring valuable information about the first openings of the human mind towards Nature; and the merest dream of such a discovery invests with a strange charm the words that could tell, if we could understand, so much of the forgotten infancy of the human. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

Excerpt from The Names of Herbes It is unnecessary to enter into any account of the life and works of William Turner, as a full account of both will be found. In Mr. B. D. Jackson's preface to his reprint (issued in 1877) of the Libellus - Turner's first work - as well as in Trimen and Dyer's Flora of Middlesex (published in pp. 364 - 369. He was born at Morpeth in Northumberland between 1510 and 1515, went to Pembroke Hall, Cambridge, and became Fellow of that College in 1531. He afterwards took up the religious views which were then becoming prominent, and went through a series of vicissitudes which are duly chronicled by Mr. Jackson. He was a prolific writer, many of his works being directed against the Catholic Church, and ex hibiting the heated controversial tone characteristic of the period in which he lived. Like many other controversialists, he was not always very particular as to the acorn-soy of his accusations - an example of this will be found in the note upon Palm in the Dictionary of English plant-james. He died in 1568. I may perhaps be allowed to draw attention to the fact that the house of Syon, where the Names of Herbes was prepared, is within a mile of the place where this Preface is written; and that the Protestant author of 1548 is introduced to the reading public by a Catholic editor in 1882. Thus the whirligig of Time brings in his revenges. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

Excerpt from A Dictionary of English Names of Plants Applied in England and Among English-Speaking People to Cultivated and Wild Plants, Trees and Shrubs It is an undeniable fact that the vast majority of people of all classes who take an interest in horticultural pursuits consists of those who, jnever having received any classical or botanical training, find it difficult to learn and remember, and impossible to understand, the Latin or scientific names by which plants are spoken of and described by botanists. These names, however useful and even necessary they may be as technical terms to the systematic botanist, become a senseless jargon in the vain attempt to fix them amongst our household words, and most of us are keenly alive to the inconsistency of employing words from a foreign and even dead language to name such familiar everyday objects as the flowers and shrubs which are grown in our gardens and woods. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

Excerpt from Plant Names IT is very unlikely that all the derivations given in this book are correct, and learned readers must form their own judgment in each case. For even the soundest etymologists resort to conjecture sometimes, and there is no branch of learning in which it is more useful. I can only say that I consulted the best authorities, and that when a derivation seemed doubtful I said so. But a critic will find plenty of marks at which to have a shot, and when the attempt has been made to explain over a thousand names there is sure to be difference of Opinion about some, probably many, of them. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.