26. Indeed, in the first place, the word we have to use so often, 'stalk,' has not been got to the roots of, yet. It comes from the Greek στέλεχος, (stelechos,) the 'holding part' of a tree, that which is like a handle to all its branches; 'stock' is another form in which it has come down to us: with some notion of its being the mother of branches: thus, when Athena's olive was burnt by the Persians, two days after, a shoot a cubit long had sprung from the 'stelechos,' of it.
27. Secondly. Few words are more interesting to the modern scholarly and professorial mind than 'stipend.' (I have twice a year at present to consider whether I am worth mine, sent with compliments from the Curators of the University chest). Now, this word comes from 'stips,' small pay, which itself comes from 'stipo,' to press together, with the idea of small coin heaped up in little towers or piles. But with the idea of lateral pressing together, instead of downward, we get 'stipes,' a solid log; in Greek, with the same sense, στύπος, (stupos,) whence, gradually, with help from another word meaning to beat, (and a side-glance at beating of hemp,) we get our 'stupid,' the German stumph, the Scottish sumph, and the plain English 'stump.'
Refining on the more delicate sound of stipes, the Latins got 'stipula,' the thin stem of straw: which rustles and ripples daintily in verse, associated with spica and spiculum, used of the sharp pointed ear of corn, and its fine processes of fairy shafts.
28. There are yet two more names of stalk to be studied, though, except for particular plants, not needing to be used,—namely, the Latin cau-dex, and cau-lis, both connected with the Greek καυλός, properly meaning a solid stalk like a handle, passing into the sense of the hilt of a sword, or quill of a pen. Then, in Latin, caudex passes into the sense of log, and so, of cut plank or tablet of wood; thus finally becoming the classical 'codex' of writings engraved on such wooden tablets, and therefore generally used for authoritative manuscripts.
Lastly, 'caulis,' retained accurately in our cauliflower, contracted in 'colewort,' and refined in 'kail,' softens itself into the French 'chou,' meaning properly the whole family of thick-stalked eatable salads with spreading heads; but these being distinguished explicitly by Pliny as 'Capitati,' 'salads with a head,' or 'Captain salads,' the mediæval French softened the 'caulis capitatus' into 'chou cabus;'—or, to separate the round or apple-like mass of leaves from the flowery foam, 'cabus' simply, by us at last enriched and emphasized into 'cabbage.'
29. I believe we have now got through the stiffest piece of etymology we shall have to master in the course of our botany; but I am certain that young readers will find patient work, in this kind, well rewarded by the groups of connected thoughts which will thus attach themselves to familiar names; and their grasp of every language they learn must only be esteemed by them secure when they recognize its derivatives in these homely associations,
and are as much at ease with the Latin or French syllables of a word as with the English ones; this familiarity being above all things needful to cure our young students of their present ludicrous impression that what is simple, in English, is knowing, in Greek; and that terms constructed out of a dead language will explain difficulties which remained insoluble in a living one. But Greek is not yet dead: while if we carry our unscholarly nomenclature much further, English soon will be; and then doubtless botanical gentlemen at Athens will for some time think it fine to describe what we used to call caryophyllaceæ, as the ἑδληφιδες.
30. For indeed we are all of us yet but school-boys, clumsily using alike our lips and brains; and with all our mastery of instruments and patience of attention, but few have reached, and those dimly, the first level of science,—wonder.
For the first instinct of the stem,—unnamed by us yet—unthought of,—the instinct of seeking light, as of the root to seek darkness,—what words can enough speak the wonder of it.