Page:An introduction to physiological and systematical botany (1st edition).djvu/204

 174 ''Engl. Bot. t.'' 253, 254, have numerous bladders attached to the leaves, which seem to secrete air, and float the plants.

Many of the preceding terms applied to leaves are occasionally combined to express a form between the two, as ovato-lanceolatum, lanceolate inclining to ovate, or elliptico-lanceolatum, as in the Privet, ''Engl. Bot. t.'' 764. When shape, or any other character, cannot be precisely defined, sub is prefixed to the term used, as subrotundum, roundish, subsessile, not quite destitute of a footstalk, to which is equivalent subpetiolatum, obscurely stalked. By the judicious use of such means, all necessary precision is attained. It is to be wished that authors were always uniform and consistent, at least with themselves, in the application of terms; but as Linnæus, the father of accurate botanical phraseology, very frequently misapplies his own terms, it is perhaps scarcely to be avoided. I have observed botanists most critical in theory, to be altogether deficient in that characteristic phraseology, that power of defining, which bears the stamp of true genius, and which renders the works of Linnaeus so luminous in