The Press Saturday, April 30, 1927. Popular Plant-Names of New Zealand.

Press, Volume LXIII, Issue 18988, 30 April 1927, Page 14

The Press Saturday, April 30, 1927. Popular Plant-Names of New Zealand.

The publication in the Transactions of thc New Zealand Institute for 192* of the second and final part of Mr Johannes C. Andersen's "Popular " Karnes of New Zealand Plants " completes a most valuable piece of scientific research, and one which should appeal to a far wider public than is usually addressed by scientific authors in these solemn volumes. In his first part, which appeared in 3920, Mr Andersen gave a complete list of the plants of New Zealand, with all the names of each one—scientific, popular English, and Maori—which are anywhere upon record. This was in itself a task of great labour, and the author prefaced his list with a most illuminating disquisition upon the whole subject, in which he dealt with the history of these names from the time of Captain Cook's expedition onwards, and tackled the many problems with which this study is everywhere beset. lie discussed in full detail such matters as the regrettable confusion in the popular names used by the settlers and bushmen in different parts of the country for the different kinds of "birch" or "beech"; the use N of the hyphen in compound names —a very thorny affair; the nature and character of the Maori names, with a tribute to the Native acuteness of observation; the flux and reflux observable in the scientific nomenclature which ought to be and doubtless some day will be stable and fixed; the accentuation of the scientific names when adopted in common speech; the attempts that have been made by individual scientists to provide workable names for our bestknown trees, herbs, and ferns; and concludes with the safe observation that "it is unsafe to make any rule; "it is almost unsafe to make' any " suggestion." In his second part the author gives " a list of the popular names with the "different scientific names under each "and chronological references to "authorities," thus providing a most useful cross-reference and making the whole. work as complete as it could well be at this time. These lists reveal a state of almost hopeless confusion in respect of the popular names of our plants. On the one hand we find a single plant, e.g., the "cabbage-tree," referred to by fifteen different names or forms of names in addition to.the one scientific name; the " tutu" has five Maori and ten English names; the

"Prince of Wales' Feather" fern has seven Maori and fifteen English names recorded, and so on. On the other hand we find the single name "black

"birch" applied to three different species of beech; the name "bush "lawyer" to three species; such names as " snow berry " written in one word, in two words with a hyphen, and in two words without a hyphen. We find such monstrosities (among the socalled popular names) as "hyperi-"cum-leaved rata," " prenanthes-like " crechtites," " divaricate suttonia," " bundle-flowered leucopogon," representing desperate attempts to popularise scientific names. We find our beeches called birches and pur buttercups lilies, and beautiful Maori names such as " pirirpiri " or " manuka " mispronounced, mis-spelt, or irrecoverably corrupted. It is when we contrast our popular names with those of Britain that our dismal'failure comes home to us. There all the common plants have names which are consecrated by bunr dreds of years of popular usage, wellworn for the tongue as an old tool is for the hand, and even when they started in life as scientific terms we see them transmitted by the genius of the folk to. such fairy gold as " cen"taury," ."bryony," and "violet." There we find some names of surpassing, beauty and poetic quality: "love "in a mist," "forget me not," "daisy," and "primrose"; others inspired by charming fancies: "Yenus "comb," "bee orchis," "old man's "beard"; others due to acute and original perception of resemblances to other objects in Nature: "Adder's "tongue," "haresfoot," "catsear," "hartstongue"; others affectionately humorous: " John-go-to-bed-at-noon," " Welcome-home-husband-be-he - never- " so-drunk." Many take their now unmeaning names from their supposed medicinal qualities, and these are often smoothed to musical and graceful forms: "Saxifrage" (the stonebreaker), "wormwood" or "wer"mood" (the mind' healer), "self"heal," and "wound wort." Some please merely by their quaintness or their savour of the pastoral: " Good "King Henry," "lovage," "honey"suckle," "sow-thistle," and "mari"gold." Shakespeare, Milton, Arnold, and many others have made exquisitely effective use of this rich vein in the folk-speech of the Old Land in a thousand passages. Towards all this wealth we can only look with longing and regret. Nobody is exactly to blame for our failure, though we may be permitted to criticise, in a mild way, those who were responsible for assigning to our plants their scientific names. If one or other of them could find such beautiful names as . "Celmisia," "Azorella," or " Olearia," surely something better than, " Chrysobaetron " could have been invented for "Maori onion," than " Muehlenbeckia " for the " pohuehue." Unfortunately for us the scientists were first in the field, whereas in the . Old Country the plants had been named by ihe peasantry, the herbalists, 1 and the poets before botanical science ' was born. The attempts to popularise the scientists' names must be admitted to be in general a failure here, in spite 'of a few chance successes, and it is , not in that direction that we must

look with hope for the future. The best names—those which have best stood the test of time and emerged triumphant from among the innumerable names which must have been curvent at. one time or in one place or other during the thousand odd years of Britain's history—are those which have been instinctively hit upon by the folk, by children or men and women who have kept the poetic mind of childhood. In New Zealand this force has had very little time to operate in, and the conditions of life in this country have not been ao favourable here as at Home, yet here and there we find true examples of good names in New Zealand of this class. " Snotiy gob," though rude, has the authentic savour; ,( snowgrass " and "' speargrass " are excellent names; " sticks *' is a genuine shepherd's word for certain species of very dcad-lookingplants; "wiggy-bush"' is picturesque and aptJy descriptive; " twisty-wisty grass " has the Jhark of the born name-giver; the "whipcord" veronica and the " kidney" fern are also admirable, though all these are not to be found in Mr Andersen's lists. Here lies our best hope for the future. When New Zealand shall have been inhabited by white men for hundreds of years doubtless our present vacillations, misconceptions, and pseudoscientific brutalities will have faded away, or suffered magic change. Probably this part of Mr Andersen's work —the recording of truly "made" names —will ultimately prove to have the most lasting value, and however that may be we are all greatly indebted to him at the moment for the flood of light which his papers have let in upon a singularly difficult yet fascinating subject.