There are few people, even among those who are very scientific, who do not love common names to flowers. Pansy, buttercup, daisy, carnation, rose, - who would want to know them by botanical names only? But common names can only spring from the heart of the people, and the common names must become really common before they are of any service at all. This has always been the ground taken by the Gardeners' Monthly, and it has looked on the attempts of some of its contemporaries to force a lot of queer names on the community in place of the botanical ones, as a positive injury, tending only to utter confusion. We take up some papers now, in which these common names have been forced, before their time, and find them still so uncommon that we have not the slightest idea what is being written about, - nor do nine-tenths of the readers. They are of no more benefit to the common people than the botanical names. A recent writer in the Gardeners' Chronicle, reviewing the past history of the Botanical Magazine, so well puts the case, and so well supports the position we have taken, that we are tempted to introduce it here:

" In spite of all inducements to tarry, I must pass on to the next volume, where there is a new departure in the matter of names, and the Linnean classes and orders are no longer given. From pl. 1 to pl. 5877 the Latin names were translated into English, or an English name was coined; thus, Solanum venustum is called the "graceful Sola-num; " Erythrochiton hypophyllanthus, " Linden's Erythrochiton; " Arenaria purpurascens, " Purple Alpine Sandwort; " and Draceenacylindrica, "Cylindric spiked Dracsena." As it is doubtful whether any one of these 5877 English names has been generally adopted (or, at least, one of those coined in the Magazine, for a few of the plants figured possess genuine English names), it was certainly not worth while encumbering the text with them. Where they are translations or explanations of the meanings of the Latin and Greek names, they serve a useful purpose; but from the examples cited it will be seen that they are often quite arbitrary, and therefore misleading to persons not understanding the botanical names".