Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 45.djvu/615

 and the asparagus of the botanist is the "sparrergrass" or "sparrowgrass" of the marketman, so we may conclude that the character of the barberry's fruit decided the change of name referred to.

The first syllable of the English name is, doubtless, as unmeaning as the corresponding part of "crayfish" or its rival form "crawfish." Perhaps in both these cases the lack of any significance



in the first part of the words may have favored the continuance of two forms side by side.

Various conjectures have been offered as to the origin of the mediæval Latin barberis and berberis. Most commonly the Latin name is said to be derived from the Arabic barbārīs or berbérys; but, according to Murray and the Century Dictionary, the Arabic form and the Persian barbari are both derivatives of the Latin. Wittstein suggests a derivation from the Greek berberi, a mussel, from the mussel-like form of the leaves. The conjecture which assumes the plant to have been imported into Europe