Page:Journal of botany, British and foreign, Volume 9 (1871).djvu/388

 360 AN AKRANGEMENT OF THE BRITISH WILLOWS.

The si2;nifieation of some names is often very obscure; in other names it is easy to be found, e. g., kntoe-ioemjkoel (pron. katootoongkool), tlie name of a species of Polygala of the subgenus Chamcchiixm. Toeuylcod signifies to Imn over; ka is the prefix for the passive form ; /oe a very common reduplication. The whole name is derived from the fact that the pericarp is leaning over the seeds ; the seeds are thus considered passive, and the plant named after the seeds. I am persuaded that, by a careful study of the Sundanese language and of the names of plants, it will be easy to find other similar interpretations.

I cannot agree with Mr. Motley, when he says that the Sundanese do not possess a written language. They employ characters which are nearly similar to the Javanese ones. Their literature is not very extended, but they possess some manuscripts.

It would be very desirable that a general manner of spelling were adopted for all the vernacidar names ; for, as all the botanists have written them after their own pronunciation, a comparison is hitlierto impossible. To prove this assertion, I might cite the Malayan names, collected by English and Dutch botanists. The importance of this remark is very obvious in comparing the vernacular names of Palms, given by Griffith.

��AN ARRANGEME.VT OF THE BRITISH WILLOWS. By the Rev. J. E. Leefe, M.A., E.L.S.

Professor Babington was so obliging, a year or two ago, as to send me a sketch of an arrangement of the British Willows, based upon the methotl of Dumortier.* Duiuortier's writings I have not seen ; but Fries in his Novit. Fl. Suec. Mantiss. prima, p. 37, anno 1882, refers to two ar- rangements suggested by that botanist, of the former of which, taken from the nectary, he says that it is " omni atteutione iligna." I may remark that Koch, in his ' Commeiitatio de Salicibus Europaeis," anno 1828, did not fail to notice that characters are to be derived from the nectary ; and constantly refers to the proportion between the pedicel and the nectary in the different species, apparently knowing nothing of Dumortier's observations ; and even Seringe, anno 1815, remarks that " Les glandes Horales ou nectaires presentent aussi quelques caractcres." Both Fries and Dumortier, it would seem, from Professor Babiuiiton's paper, adopt pretty much the same subgenera. I hope an old-fashioned observer of Wdlows may be pardoned for thinking that, in a natural genus like Salix, it is inadvisable to distract the student's attention by the introduction of new subgeneric names, if it can be avoided ; and es- pecially of names which do not carry an obvious useful meaning on the face of them, but are rather a burden upon the memory.

With a view to contribute something, so far as I am able, towards establishing clear and workable characters in this difficult genus, I wouhl now beg to be permitted to make a few remarks on the sectional cha- racters proposed by Mr. Babington in his interesting paper.

Section 1. FUisalix, Dumort. Mr. Babington says, Catkins and their leafy stalk deciduous together. Nectary of two pieces ; vernation convo- lute. The peduncle (the leafy stalk) of the catkins in the Pentandrce, Fra-


 * Published iu this Joiu-iial, Vol. I. (18G3), pp. 167-172.

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