Paxton's Botanical Dictionary - Comprising the Names, History, and Culture of All Plants Known in Britain; With a Full Explanation of Technical Terms #232486

Respecting the number of scientific terms herein explained, we may be allowed to say that no other popular glossary contains such a copious collection. Their explication is in exact accordance with the views of the most learned botanists, merely being reduced to dimensions which best comport with simplicity and conciseness. Considering the immense field which this volume occupies, the accentuation of generic, specific, and all purely botanical names that are not Anglicised, must be regarded as a highly valuable characteristic. By the extreme perspicuity of the marks employed, their full and universal adaptation, and the fact that they were all supplied by the first botanist in England, (dr. Lindley,) the botanic student or other assiduous examiner will here meet with a fund of accurate instruction in this particular, to which only the most laboured and extremely expensive publication can at all pretend. It might be assumed that the signs used are sufficiently common to require no comment but, for the benefit of the less informed, we shall just show the manner in which they apply. In the first place, the vowel in each word over which the primary accent occurs, sustains all the emphasis of the syllabic pronunciation, independently of the real nature of the sign. Further, the employment of the long quantity or the short quantity simply denotes that the vowel above which they are placed is to be sounded long and broadly, or short and abruptly. To vary our expression, the short vowel is perpetually pronounced in conjunction with the next consonant, and the long one has its own distinct and final sound, as if the letter were doubled, but the voice rested on each. In all cases when the last syllable but one is marked long the accent falls on that syllable; and when the last syllable but one is marked short the accent falls on the last syllable but two. Thus Romani'is would be accented Romanus, and tricolor would be accented tricolor, although the i on which the accent is placed is short. It is extremely important to bear this in mind.