I was induced to refresh my botanical (local) lore by reading the query to our good Editor, to see if I could help him out, but I failed in every instance but one; yet I came across so many names just as ridiculous that I offer them for what they are worth, i. e. nothing, only as a probable guide to some in making out orders:

[The names here given are not merely local, but are accepted common names; yet even here there may be trouble, for Aletris farinosa is called Star Grass as well as Hypoxis stellata, and the poor florist would not know which of the two to send if he should get a Star Grass order.

We should be very glad if our correspondents would from time to time contribute notes on local names of plants, for common names are very de-sira.ble when they really are common. No one would want to talk of their beds of Viola tricolor when they had the Pansy in mind, nor of Dianthus barbatus in a chat on the Sweet William. It is the utter recklessness with which anybody or everybody has lately claimed the right to start a name of their own as a common name long before it is common or even local, to the utter confusion of everybody, that is condemnable. As in ancient Babel, nobody knows what the other is talking of. If by common acceptance names are widely known locally, we shall indeed be very glad to have notes of them. We do not want a name sent to us because Mr. this or Mrs. that calls it so. - Ed. G. M].