To amateurs of fruits and flowers the pronunciation of horticultural names is among the most familiar of the minor sources of vexation. This petty annoy-ance, were it of those to which one is only very seldom liable, might well be passed over in silence; but midsummer weeds need not to be looked after a tithe so often as the scientific and foreign terms from the vocabulary of the favorite pursuit, are liable to occur in ordinary horticultural conversation. An interview-between two florists or pomologists casually meeting in the street, may not be of five minutes' duration, and yet one or both will hardly fail to designate some favorite plant by a ludicrous mispronunciation sure to provoke the hearer's mirth or deepen his ignorance, according as his orthoepical information is more or less extensive than that of the speaker. Unfortunately, the difficulty under consideration is more easily complained of than remedied.

The source of the trouble in regard to the pronunciation of these names lies in the fact that they do not properly form a constituent part of our language. One large family of them - the whole body of botanical terms - is borrowed from two ancient classical tongues, of which the original sounds have been to a great extent lost beyond hope of recovery. It is well known, however, that the finest literature of antiquity was nearly all produced before writers of grammars and dictionaries had scarcely been heard of; certainly before their few meagre treatises, in the absence of the art of printing, could have been sufficiently disseminated to exert any considerable influence. Hence, as well as from other evidences, it is highly probable that the Greek and Latin, as well as other cotemporary languages, were originally written exactly as they were pronounced; that, consequently, in any of their words, the number of syllables must have been the same as the number of vowels or diphthongs. Such a syllabio division, therefore, according to ancient usage, is still adhered to; but, aside from this, the two classical tongues, no longer retaining the sounds which thundered from Demosthenes' lips or lent a charm to Cicero's eloquence, are now pronounced by each modern nation according to the analogies of its own language.

Even in modern Greece, where little children, almost without effort, learn what is the acquisition of a lifetime elsewhere, and read intelligibly compositions which their hoary ancestors gave to immortality twenty centuries ago - even there in its native home the sonorous ring of the old vocalization is all gone. Thus it is that, at the present day, the Greek and Latin orthoepy of Germany is German; of France, French; of Italy, Italian; of Spain, Spanish, etc, etc. That, every where in those countries, there should be a considerable degree of uniformity in the pronunciation of the so-called dead languages, arises not from any effort to conform to some common standard, but rather from the general similarity of the vowel sounds in the languages of Central and Southwestern Europe. Based upon this resemblance, a kind of mongrel system, called the continental style of pronouncing Greek and Latin, has attempted to force itself into English-speaking countries; but, wherever introduced in the schools of England or America, this European, or, more properly, Italian mode of sounding Greek and Latin vowels, has resulted in a ridiculous fail-are, and, throughout Great Britain and the United States, the best pronunciation of the old classic tongues still continues to be governed by the general laws of English orthoepy.

The only exception to this usage, in countries where English is the vernacular language, is the almost universal practice of giving the Italian sound to the vowels in singing Latin sacred music, which mostly having originated within the jurisdiction of "the Church," retains to this extent the pronunciation of modern Rome. From what has just been written, it will be apparent that the one real difficulty in pronouncing a botanical term consists in knowing upon which of its syllables to lay the emphatic accent, or stress of voice. Even this difficulty lies within quite narrow limits; for the primary and only important accent of every Greek or Latin word falls either upon the second or third syllable from its end. For example, my-08-6-tis and clem-a-tis are Greek, the former being accented on the penult or second syllable, the latter, on the antepenult or third syllable, counting backward from the termination of the words. It is the same with the accentuation of the two Latin names, spi-roe-a and gla-di-o-lus, and yet most gardeners - not to say their employers - very easily manage to spoil these four, as well as many other words, by placing the stress of voice upon the wrong letters.

Full directions for the correct accentuation of Greek and Latin words may, of course, be found in the grammars of those languages; but it is to be feared that most who are reading these pages would hardly have patience, even if they had the leisure, to explore the uninviting mines where the dry details of ancient prosody are to be sought for. The erroneous pronunciation must be corrected, if at all, by some more direct and more easily available means. Fortunately, in regard to the class of words hitherto considered, the remedy easiest of application is just that which promises to be most generally successful. It is necessary only that editors of horticultural works, and whoever else may publish any thing wherein botanical terms are employed, should cause these terms to be printed with the accents marked, just as they are in some elementary school-books. This very commendable practice, indeed, was introduced many years ago, by the late Mr. Loudon, in his Gardener's Magazine, and was afterwards continued by that distinguished writer on rural affairs, during the remainder of his life. In many cases, also, he was able, by using italics, to indicate the derivation of Greek and Latin names of modern formation.