Evening star., 1932-04-08
THIS AND THAT
BY CHARLES E. TRACEWELL.

bush, is nice-sounding aggregation OF
81 yllables, one of the most meloalous IN
tnc scientific nomenclature OF plants.
| 1t Is a weedy plant with fragrant now
e-s. Like the teas and the witch nazel:
| its growth is scraggly. but this snouio
not keep it out Of home gardens. lheIe
are many places In the average yaro,
even the smallest, where weedy snruos
can be used to great advantage, Iur-
nishing by their very character q per
feet contrast with the more UNIFORM
growing things. One of these Is Caebo-
thus oivaricatus, sometimes called the
mountain lilac.
! Another nice scientific name, now
more than ever on the gardening tongue
IL Daphne cneorum. 1t has pink now
ers, small and pretty and very Drlght:
| Often a gardener will fnd altei
browsing through. the catalogues ano
| plant lists, that a certain scientnc
! name, for no particular reason at all
| sticks in his mind 1t win crop up at
odd moments, and he will wonder why
he thought Of it.
With us this season this word Is Cra-
taegus.
/ Crataegus is the fancy name for
! hawthorn. The genus is favorite IN
/ England and this country, increasingly
more so in America every year.
Paul's scarlet hawthorn is known TO
many a gardener. II it is as good as the
great climber PauTs scarlet, the rose,
it must be verv fine.
HyC1angea is another name Of 3
genus Of plants which has been USED
! 50 nu,h and by so many people that
it hes lest ell sense of unfamiliarity
| One can make quite an impression
however. b. realing of Hydranges
/ b-rc-ccnG "r2ndiflCra as II one were
/ in the habit of talking about nothing
/ less at anv time.
Or Hydrangea paniculata grandifiora
Ks x
| We sinceley hope that no reader will
| get the idea that these words are to be
learned for the sake of impresSing
others. Those who can be impressed
| BY such things are scarcely worth i'm
pressing In most cases. Occasionally 1t
is interesting and beneficial to bring
down high-flying horticultural bounder
with hot shot Of well aimed scientific
names, the bigger the better.
Mostly. however, these Latin names
ere interesting In and fer themselves.
| They contain much of the romance and
! his'Crv of plant life. They hold the
| real knowledge of mankind on such
matter. Even a smattering Of Latin
will enable the plant lover to pronounce
them correctly: at the same time he
gathers up a few important facts from
them about the plants themselves.
Thus he will come to recognize that
"grandiflora" means nothing more
startling than large -flowered When
ever he runs into it he will realize at
a glance that the plant or shrub has
blossoms of some size
"Arborescens, another oft-met word
in plant nomenclature. neans resem-
bling a tree, woodv in stalk. Wherever
the amateur gardener sees it in a de-
srriptive name he knows at once that
the plant or shrub has certain char
acteriStics
Even in ordinary reading OF plant
catalogues and books on gardening one
will run into the same Latin words so
many times that the real meaning will
become apparent, and that often un-
consciously
1t is possible, after all. for a human
being to know something or other and
at tie sane time not be able to define
1t. Definition Is an art in itself
knowledge which cannot be expressed
fr ely and easily perhaps is not as
whole knowledge as that which can be
so expressed. but there can be no uues-
tion at all that 1t Is much better than
none at all. There are many gardeners
whose understanding Of ancient Latin
Is entirely rudimentary and yet who by
constant browsing among garden books
and catalogues, their excellent supple
ments. come to have a real. though lin
tied. working knowledge Of that ancient
tOnplIe