diff --git a/tendermint/src/merkle.rs b/tendermint/src/merkle.rs
index e289d73a8..f34f0cc5f 100644
--- a/tendermint/src/merkle.rs
+++ b/tendermint/src/merkle.rs
@@ -8,9 +8,11 @@ pub const HASH_SIZE: usize = 32;
 /// Hash is the output of the cryptographic digest function
 pub type Hash = [u8; HASH_SIZE];
 
-/// Compute a simple Merkle root from the arbitrary byte arrays
-pub fn simple_hash_from_byte_slices(byte_slices: Vec<Vec<u8>>) -> Hash {
-    simple_hash_from_byte_slices_inner(byte_slices.as_slice())
+/// Compute a simple Merkle root from vectors of arbitrary byte vectors.
+/// The leaves of the tree are the bytes of the given byte vectors in
+/// the given order.
+pub fn simple_hash_from_byte_vectors(byte_vecs: Vec<Vec<u8>>) -> Hash {
+    simple_hash_from_byte_slices_inner(byte_vecs.as_slice())
 }
 
 // recurse into subtrees
@@ -97,7 +99,7 @@ mod tests {
         let empty_leaf_root = &hex::decode(empty_leaf_root_hex).unwrap();
         let empty_tree: Vec<Vec<u8>> = vec![vec![]; 1];
 
-        let root = simple_hash_from_byte_slices(empty_tree);
+        let root = simple_hash_from_byte_vectors(empty_tree);
         assert_eq!(empty_leaf_root, &root);
     }
 
@@ -109,7 +111,7 @@ mod tests {
         let leaf_root = &hex::decode(leaf_root_hex).unwrap();
         let leaf_tree: Vec<Vec<u8>> = vec![leaf_string.as_bytes().to_vec(); 1];
 
-        let root = simple_hash_from_byte_slices(leaf_tree);
+        let root = simple_hash_from_byte_vectors(leaf_tree);
         assert_eq!(leaf_root, &root);
     }
 
diff --git a/tendermint/src/validator.rs b/tendermint/src/validator.rs
index 8cafe386e..f936de8a9 100644
--- a/tendermint/src/validator.rs
+++ b/tendermint/src/validator.rs
@@ -26,7 +26,7 @@ impl Set {
             .into_iter()
             .map(|x| x.hash_bytes())
             .collect();
-        merkle::simple_hash_from_byte_slices(validator_bytes)
+        merkle::simple_hash_from_byte_vectors(validator_bytes)
     }
 }