Tamarà, which, independent of barbarism, ought to have been preferred to the very confined one of Nelumbo. In like manner the Bamboo, Arundo Bambos of Linnæus, proving a distinct genus, has received the appellation of Bambusa, though Jussieu had already given it that of Nastus from Dioscorides[1]. Perhaps the barbarous name of some very local plants, when they cannot possibly have been known previously by any other, and when that name is harmonious and easily reconcileable to the Latin tongue, may be admitted, as that of the Japan shrub Aucuba; but such a word as Ginkgo is intolerable. The Roman writers, as Cæsar, in describing foreign countries, have occasionally latinized some words or names that fell in their way, which may possibly excuse our making Ailanthus of Aylanto, or Pandanus of Pan-
- ↑ It is not indeed clear that this name is so correctly applied as that of Cyamus, because Nastus originally belonged to "a reed with a solid stem," perhaps a palm; but not being wanted, nor capable of being correctly used, for the latter, it may very well serve for the Bamboo. There is no end of raking up old uncertainties about classical names.
