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CORRESPONDENCE. 361
])lants. Howercr, it is often the case that names are stated to be those of trees,
whereas they may be only those of the products common to several.
Though I value vernacular names most highly, and do not depreciate them
as I am chai'ged with doing, yet it must be remembered that very different
opinions have been expressed respecting them.
Dr. Wight says, " We must bear in mind that in India, as in England, tlio
same plants have diffei-ent names in different provinces, and not unfrequently
the same name is given to a variety of plants, or, vice versa, a great variety of
names to the same plant, rendering the knowledge of very difBcult acquisition,
and, when acquired, of comparatively little value. Added to these impedi-
ments to the acquisition of a correct knowledge of vernacular names of plants,
we know that these names, being preserved, not by description and figures,
which limit them invariably to the same species, but by tradition, are therefore
in the course of time, through mistakes of persons repeating them, liable to
change by being applied to plants different from those to wJiich they were
originally given,—the only way, indeed, to account for the wide discrepancies
often found in the names given to the same plants by different persons speak-
ing the same language." (' Illustrations of Indian Botany,' vol. i., Introd. Notice,
p. ii.)
And again, Surgeon-Major Balfour has the following :— " I may mention that
care is required against placing undue reliance on native terms. It is a very
prevalent, though erroneous impression that unediicated, and even wild, races
possess accurate knowledge of natural objects, when in truth the whole of their
thoughts through hfe are directed to procuring their own subsistence. In the
preface to the ' Flora Andhrica,' Mr. Walter Elliott gives as authorities Drs.
Koyle and Griffiths in favour of, and Drs. Wight, Wallich, and Carey against,
the use of vernacular names ; yet he remarks that it is the commonest and
most useful plants that are known by definite and generally-received appella-
tions. Dr. Waring observes, in a recent number of the ' Madras Quarterly
Journal,' that an entire dependence on native names, without reference to bo-
tanical characters or sensible properties, will often lead into error; and Dr.
Hooker, in his ' Himalayan Journals,' mentions that throughout his travels he
had been struck with the undue reliance placed on the native names for
plants." C Timber Trees of India,' Madras, 1862, preface.)
It should be added, however, that neither Dr. Wight nor Dr. Wallich pos-
sessed any accurate knowledge of the different Indian languages, which greatly
weakens their opinion on this particular point. I cannot, howeveit, resist the
temptation of quoting from a letter (dated Batavia, Oct. 1854) by Mr. Motley
to Mr. Mitten, bearing on the subject :—
"... These mountaineers, however, are botanists to an extent you would
hardly expect among so-called savages. Every plant has its native name, and
given upon the system of generic and specific names. For instance, when I
asked a man the name of a little Pavetta, he said at once, " I never saw this before,
and I don't know its own name, but its ' mother-name' is so-and-so," men-
tionintr the native generic term for Pavetta, Ixora, and such plants in general.
The authors of the ' Catalogue of the Buitenzorg Garden ' have thought these
VOL. VII. [DECEMBER 1, 1809.] 2 C