chapter 134

-138

II. THE LEAF-STALK (CYMBA) sustains, and expands itself into, the Leaf 133, 134

It is essentially furrowed above, and convex below 134

It is to be called in Latin, the Cymba; in English, the Leaf-Stalk 135

III. THE FLOWER-STALK (PETIOLUS):

It is essentially round 130

It is usually separated distinctly at its termination from the flower 130, 131

It is to be called in Latin, Petiolus; in English, Flower-stalk 130

These three are the essential parts of a stem. But {242} besides these, it has, when largely developed, a permanent form: namely,

IV. THE TRUNK.--A non-advancing mass of collected stem, arrested at a given height from the ground 139

/# The stems of annual plants are either leafy, as of a thistle, or bare, sustaining the flower or flower-cluster at a certain height above the ground. Receiving therefore these following names:--- #/

V. THE VIRGA.--The leafy stem of an annual plant, not a grass, yet growing upright 147

VI. THE VIRGULA.--The leafless flower-stem of an annual plant, not a grass, as of a primrose or dandelion 147

VII. THE FILUM.--The running stem of a creeping plant

/# It is not specified in the text for use; but will be necessary; so also, perhaps, the Stelechos, or stalk proper (26), the branched stem of an annual plant, not a grass; one cannot well talk of the Virga of hemlock. The 'Stolon' is explained in its classical sense at page 158, but I believe botanists use it otherwise. I shall have occasion to refer to, and complete its explanation, in speaking of bulbous plants. #/

VIII. THE CAUDEX.--The essentially ligneous and compact part of a stem 149

{243}

/# This equivocal word is not specified for use in the text, but I mean to keep it for the accumulated stems of inlaid plants, palms, and the like; for which otherwise we have no separate term. #/

IX. THE AVENA.--Not specified in the text at all; but it will be prettier than 'baculus,' which is that I had proposed, for the 'staff' of grasses. See page 179.

/# These ten names are all that the student need remember; but he will find some interesting particulars respecting the following three, noticed in the text:--- #/

STIPS.--The origin of stipend, stupid, and stump 148

STIPULA.--The subtlest Latin term for straw 148

CAULIS (Kale).--The peculiar stem of branched eatable vegetables 149

CANNA.--Not noticed in the text; but likely to be sometimes useful for the stronger stems of grasses.

III. THE LEAF.

Derivation of word 26

The Latin form 'folium' 41

The Greek form 'petalos' 42

Veins and ribs of leaves, to be usually summed under the term 'rib' 44

Chemistry of leaves 46 {244}

/# The nomenclature of the leaf consists, in botanical books, of little more than barbarous, and, for the general reader, totally useless attempts to describe their forms in Latin. But their forms are infinite and indescribable except by the pencil. I will give central types of form in the next volume of Proserpina; which, so that the reader sees and remembers, he may _call_ anything he likes. But it is necessary that names should be assigned to certain classes of leaves which are essentially different from each other in character and tissue, not merely in form. Of these the two main divisions have been already given: but I will now add the less important ones which yet require distinct names. #/

I. APOLLINE.--Typically represented by the laurel 51

II. ARETHUSAN.--Represented by the alisma 52

/# It ought to have been noticed that the character of serration, within reserved limits, is essential to an Apolline leaf, and absolutely refused by an Arethusan one. #/

III. DRYAD.--Of the ordinary leaf tissue, neither manifestly strong, nor admirably tender, but serviceably consistent, which we find generally to be the substance of the leaves of forest trees. Typically represented by those of the oak.

IV. ABIETINE.--Shaft or sword-shape, as the leaves of firs and pines.

V. CRESSIC.--Delicate and light, with smooth tissue, as the leaves of cresses, and clover. {245}

VI. SALVIAN.--Soft and woolly, like miniature blankets, easily folded, as the leaves of sage.

VII. CAULINE.--Softly succulent, with thick central ribs, as of the cabbage.

VIII. ALOEINE.--Inflexibly succulent, as of the aloe or houseleek.

/# No rigid application of these terms must ever be attempted; but they direct the attention to important general conditions, and will often be found to save time and trouble in description. #/

IV. THE FLOWER.

Its general nature and function 65

Consists essentially of Corolla and Treasury 78

Has in perfect form the following parts:--

I. THE TORUS.--Not yet enough described in the text. It is the expansion of the extremity of the flower-stalk, in preparation for the support of the expanding flower 66, 224

II. THE INVOLUCRUM.--Any kind of wrapping or propping condition of leafage at the base of a flower may properly come under this head; but the manner of prop or protection differs in different kinds, and I will not at present give generic names to these peculiar forms.

{246} III. THE CALYX (The Hiding-place).--The outer whorl of leaves, under the protection of which the real flower is brought to maturity. Its separate leaves are called SEPALS 80

IV. THE COROLLA (The Cup).--The inner whorl of leaves, forming the flower itself. Its separate leaves are called PETALS 71

V. THE TREASURY.--The part of the flower that contains its seeds.

VI. THE PILLAR.--The part of the flower above its treasury, by which the power of the pollen is carried down to the seeds 78

It consists usually of two parts--the SHAFT and VOLUTE 78

When the pillar is composed of two or more shafts, attached to separate treasury-cells, each cell with its shaft is called a CARPEL 235

VII. THE STAMENS.--The parts of the flower which secrete its pollen 78

They consist usually of two parts, the FILAMENT and ANTHER, not yet described.

VIII. THE NECTARY.--The part of the flower containing its honey, or any other special product of its inflorescence. The name has often been {247} given to certain forms of petals of which the use is not yet known. No notice has yet been taken of this part of the flower in Proserpina.

/# These being all the essential parts of the flower itself, other forms and substances are developed in the seed as it ripens, which, I believe, may most conveniently be arranged in a separate section, though not logically to be considered as separable from the flower, but only as mature states of certain parts of it. #/

V. THE SEED.

I must once more desire the reader to take notice that, under the four sections already defined, the morphology of the plant is to be considered as complete, and that we are now only to examine and name, farther, its _product_; and that not so much as the germ of its own future descendant flower, but as a separate substance which it is appointed to form, partly to its own detriment, for the sake of higher creatures. This product consists essentially of two parts: the Seed and its Husk.

I. THE SEED.--Defined 220

It consists, in its perfect form, of three parts 222

/# These three parts are not yet determinately named in the text: but I give now the names which will be usually attached to them. #/

A. _The Sacque_.--The outside skin of a seed 221

{248}

B. _The Nutrine_.--A word which I coin, for general applicability, whether to the farina of corn, the substance of a nut, or the parts that become the first leaves in a bean 221

C. _The Germ_.--The origin of the root 221

II. THE HUSK.--Defined 222

Consists, like the seed when in perfect form, of three parts.

A. _The Skin_.--The outer envelope of all the seed structures 222

B. _The Rind_.--The central body of the Husk. 222-235

C. _The Shell_.--Not always shelly, yet best described by this general term; and becoming a shell, so called, in nuts, peaches, dates, and other such kernel-fruits 222

The products of the Seed and Husk of Plants, for the use of animals, are practically to be massed under the three heads of BREAD, OIL, and FRUIT. But the substance of which bread is made is more accurately described as Farina; and the pleasantness of fruit to the taste depends on two elements in its substance: the juice, and the pulp containing it, which may properly be called Nectar and Ambrosia. We have therefore in all four essential products of the Seed and Husk--

{249} A. Farina. Flour 227

B. Oleum. Oil 229

C. Nectar. Fruit-juice 229

D. Ambrosia. Fruit-substance 230

Besides these all-important products of the seed, others are formed in the stems and leaves of plants, of which no account hitherto has been given in Proserpina. I delay any extended description of these until we have examined the structure of wood itself more closely; this intricate and difficult task having been remitted (p. 195) to the days of coming spring; and I am well pleased that my younger readers should at first be vexed with no more names to be learned than those of the vegetable productions with which they are most pleasantly acquainted: but for older ones, I think it well, before closing the present volume, to indicate, with warning, some of the obscurities, and probable fallacies, with which this vanity of science encumbers the chemistry, no less than the morphology, of plants.

Looking back to one of the first books in which our new knowledge of organic chemistry began to be displayed, thirty years ago, I find that even at that period the organic elements which the cuisine of the laboratory had already detected in simple Indigo, were the following:-- {250}

Isatine, Bromisatine, Bidromisatine; Chlorisatine, Bichlorisatine; Chlorisatyde, Bichlorisatyde; Chlorindine, Chlorindoptene, Chlorindatmit; Chloranile, Chloranilam, and, Chloranilammon.

And yet, with all this practical skill in decoction, and accumulative industry in observation and nomenclature, so far are our scientific men from arriving, by any decoctive process of their own knowledge, at general results useful to ordinary human creatures, that when I wish now to separate, for young scholars, in first massive arrangement of vegetable productions, the Substances of Plants from their Essences; that is to say, the weighable and measurable body of the plant from its practically immeasurable, if not imponderable, spirit, I find in my three volumes of close-printed chemistry, no information what ever respecting the quality of volatility in matter, except this one sentence:--

"The disposition of various substances to yield vapour is very different: and the difference depends doubtless on the relative power of cohesion with which they are endowed."[67]

Even in this not extremely pregnant, though extremely {251} cautious, sentence, two conditions of matter are confused, no notice being taken of the difference in manner of dissolution between a vitally fragrant and a mortally putrid substance.

It is still more curious that when I look for more definite instruction on such points to the higher ranks of botanists, I find in the index to Dr. Lindley's 'Introduction to Botany'--seven hundred pages of close print--not one of the four words 'Volatile,' 'Essence,' 'Scent,' or 'Perfume.' I examine the index to Gray's 'Structural and Systematic Botany,' with precisely the same success. I next consult Professors Balfour and Grindon, and am met by the same dignified silence. Finally, I think over the possible chances in French, and try in Figuier's indices to the 'Histoire des Plantes' for 'Odeur'--no such word! 'Parfum'--no such word. 'Essence'--no such word. 'Encens'--no such word. I try at last 'Pois de Senteur,' at a venture, and am referred to a page which describes their going to sleep.

Left thus to my own resources, I must be content for the present to bring the subject at least under safe laws of nomenclature. It is possible that modern chemistry may be entirely right in alleging the absolute identity of substances such as albumen, or fibrine, whether they occur in the animal or vegetable economies. But I do not choose to assume this identity in my nomenclature. It may, perhaps, be very fine and very instructive to {252} inform the pupils preparing for competitive examination that the main element of Milk is Milkine, and of Cheese, Cheesine. But for the practical purposes of life, all that I think it necessary for the pupil to know is that in order to get either milk or cheese, he must address himself to a Cow, and not to a Pump; and that what a chemist can produce for him out of dandelions or cocoanuts, however milky or cheesy it may look, may more safely be called by some name of its own.

This distinctness of language becomes every day more desirable, in the face of the refinements of chemical art which now enable the ingenious confectioner to meet the demands of an unscientific person for (suppose) a lemon drop, with a mixture of nitric acid, sulphur, and stewed bones. It is better, whatever the chemical identity of the products may be, that each should receive a distinctive epithet, and be asked for and supplied, in vulgar English, and vulgar probity, either as essence of lemons, or skeletons.

I intend, therefore,--and believe that the practice will be found both wise and convenient,--to separate in all my works on natural history the terms used for vegetable products from those used for animal or mineral ones, whatever may be their chemical identity, or resemblance in aspect. I do not mean to talk of fat in seeds, nor of flour in eggs, nor of milk in rocks. Pace my prelatical friends, I mean to use the word 'Alb' for vegetable albumen; and although I cannot without pedantry avoid {253} using sometimes the word 'milky' of the white juices of plants, I must beg the reader to remain unaffected in his conviction that there is a vital difference between liquids that coagulate into butter, or congeal into India-rubber. Oil, when used simply, will always mean a vegetable product: and when I have occasion to speak of petroleum, tallow, or blubber, I shall generally call these substances by their right names.

There are also a certain number of vegetable materials more or less prepared, secreted, or digested for us by animals, such as wax, honey, silk, and cochineal. The properties of these require more complex definitions, but they have all very intelligible and well-established names. 'Tea' must be a general term for an extract of any plant in boiling water: though when standing alone the word will take its accepted Chinese meaning: and essence, the general term for the condensed dew of a vegetable vapour, which is with grace and fitness called the 'being' of a plant, because its properties are almost always characteristic of the species; and it is not, like leaf tissue or wood fibre, approximately the same material in different shapes; but a separate element in each family of flowers, of a mysterious, delightful, or dangerous influence, logically inexplicable, chemically inconstructible, and wholly, in dignity of nature, above all modes and faculties of form.

* * * * *

{254}

INDEX II.

TO THE PLANTS SPOKEN OF IN THIS VOLUME, UNDER THEIR ENGLISH NAMES, ACCEPTED BY PROSERPINA.

Apple, 102 Ash, 120, 127 Aspen, 134 Asphodel, 8, 36 Bay, 51 Bean, 104 Bed-straw, 120 Bindweed, 144 Birch, 172 Blackthorn, 119, 127 Blaeberry, 52, 206 Bluebell, 144 Bramble, 119, 195 Burdock, 112, 131 Burnet, 95 Butterbur, 118 Cabbage, 131, 149 Captain-salad, 149 Carrot, 32, 35 Cauliflower, 131, 149 Cedar, 35, 61, 113 Celandine, 72 Cherry, 65, 130 Chestnut, 62 " Spanish, 166 Chicory, 118 Clover, 111 Colewort, 149 Coltsfoot, 110 Corn-cockle, 108 Corn-flag, 104, 109 Cowslip, 139 Crocus, 36, 37 Daffodil, {255} Daisy, 117, 144, 145 Dandelion, 117 Devil's Bit, 147 Dock, 131 Elm, 52 Fig, 63 Flag, 104 Flax, 165 Foils, Rock, 144 " Roof, 144, 146 Foxglove, 70, 118, 139 Frog-flower, 56 Grape, 103, 130 Grass, 52, 53, 55, 156, 158, 161, 163 Hawk's-eye, 118 Hazel, 120 Heath, 67, 68, 107, 208 Hemlock, 107 Herb-Robert, 121 Holly, 113, 119 Houseleek, 37, 146 Hyacinth, 65, 67 Ivy, 111 Jacinth, 83, 186 King-cup, 110 Laurel, 35, 59, 140 " leaves, 43, 51, 60 Lichen, 175 Lilac, 76 Lily, 1, 36, 53, 104, 109 Lily, St. Bruno's, 1, 7, 9, 10 Lily of the Valley, 143 Lily, Water, 55, 72 Ling, 68, 69 Lion's-tooth, 113 Liquorice, 38 Lucy, 110, 144 Mistletoe, 111 Moss, 12, 15, 175 Mushroom, 43, 127 Myrtle, 51 Nettle, 52, 88, 107 Nightshade, 108 Oak, 36, 140 " blossom, 67 Olive, 51, 63, 142 Onion, 38 Orange, 51 Pæony, 129 Palm, 43, 53, 54, 103, 156, 166 {256} Pansy, 120, 144 Papilionaceæ, 145 Papyrus, 165 Pea, 32, 144 Peach, 130, 144 Pine, 140 Pineapple, 14 Pink, 144 Plantain, 134 Pomegranate, 102 Poplar, 52 Poppy, 70, 76, 86, 104 Primrose, 79, 144 Radish, 35, 38 Ragged Robin, 155 Rhubarb, 131 Rice, 52 Rock-foil, 144 Roof-foil, 144, 146 Rose, 64, 69, 75, 104, 109, 119, 121, 129, 144 Rush, 157 Saxifrage, 120, 143, 146 Scabious, 147 Sedum, 146 Sorrel-wood, 9 Spider Plant, 8 Sponsa solis, 118 Stella, 144, 146 " domestica, 146 Stonecrop, 146 Sweetbriar, 109 Thistle, 103, 104, 113, 117, 118, 121, 144 _note_, 151 Thistle, Creeping, 138 " Waste, 138 Thorns, 121, 127 " Black, 119, 127 Thyme, 118 Tobacco, 38, 108 Tormentilla, 110 Turnip, 35 Vine, 104, 108, 140, 142 Viola, 144 Wallflower, 111 Wheat, 127, 165 Wreathewort, 181

* * * * *

{257}

INDEX III.

TO THE PLANTS SPOKEN OF IN THIS VOLUME, UNDER THEIR LATIN OR GREEK NAMES, ACCEPTED BY PROSERPINA.

Acanthus, 104 Alata, 144 Alisma, 52 Amaryllis, 36, 37 Anemone, 107 Artemides, 196 Asphodel, 11 Aurora, 207 Azalea, 207 Cactus, 43 Campanula, 144 Carduus, 138 Charites, 188 Cistus, 69 Clarissa, 144, 155 Contorta, 181 Convoluta, 144 Cyclamen, 32 Drosidæ, 36, 199 Ensatæ, 203 Ericæ, 9, 206 Eryngo, 83 Fragaria, 188 Francesca, 144, 146 Fraxinus, 195 Geranium, 83, 120 Gladiolus, 104, 109, 163 Hyacinthus, 186 Hypnum, 13 Iris, 36, 103 Lilium (_see_ Lily), 8 Lucia, 110, 189 {258} Magnolia, 51 Margarita, 144 Myrtilla, 206 Narcissus, 109 Ophrys, 180 Papaver, 91, 96 Persica, 144 Pomum, 188 Primula, 143 Rosa, 144 Rubra, 188, 195 Satyrium, 182 Stella, 144, 146 Veronica, 75 Viola, 144

* * * * *

Notes

[1] At least, it throws off its flowers on each side in a bewilderingly pretty way; a real lily can't branch, I believe: but, if not, what is the use of the botanical books saying "on an unbranched stem"?

[2] I have by happy chance just added to my Oxford library the poet Gray's copy of Linnæus, with its exquisitely written Latin notes, exemplary alike to scholar and naturalist.

[3] It was in the year 1860, in June.

[4] Admirably engraved by Mr. Burgess, from my pen drawing, now at Oxford. By comparing it with the plate of the same flower in Sowerby's work, the student will at once see the difference between attentive drawing, which gives the cadence and relation of masses in a group, and the mere copying of each flower in an unconsidered huddle.

[5] "Histoire des Plantes." Ed. 1865, p. 416.

[6] The like of it I have now painted, Number 281, CASE XII., in the Educational Series of Oxford.

[7] Properly, Floræ Danicæ, but it is so tiresome to print the diphthongs that I shall always call it thus. It is a folio series, exquisitely begun, a hundred years ago; and not yet finished.

[8] Magnified about seven times. See note at end of this chapter.

[9] American,--'System of Botany,' the best technical book I have.

[10] 'Dicranum cerviculatum,' sequel to Flora Danica, Tab. MMCCX.

[11] The reader should buy a small specimen of this mineral; it is a useful type of many structures.

[12] LUCCA, _Aug. 9th, 1874._--I have left this passage as originally written, but I believe the dome is of accumulated earth. Bringing home, here, evening after evening, heaps of all kinds of mosses from the hills among which the Archbishop Ruggieri was hunting the wolf and her whelps in Ugolino's dream, I am more and more struck, every day, with their special function as earth-gatherers, and with the enormous importance to their own brightness, and to our service, of that dark and degraded state of the inferior leaves. And it fastens itself in my mind mainly as their distinctive character, that as the leaves of a tree become wood, so the leaves of a moss become earth, while yet a normal part of the plant. Here is a cake in my hand weighing half a pound, bright green on the surface, with minute crisp leaves; but an inch thick beneath in what looks at first like clay, but is indeed knitted fibre of exhausted moss. Also, I don't at all find the generalization I made from the botanical books likely to have occurred to me from the real things. No moss leaves that I can find here give me the idea of resemblance to pineapple leaves; nor do I see any, through my weak lens, clearly serrated; but I do find a general tendency to run into a silky filamentous structure, and in some, especially on a small one gathered from the fissures in the marble of the cathedral, white threads of considerable length at the extremities of the leaves, of which threads I remember no drawing or notice in the botanical books. Figure 1 represents, magnified, a cluster of these leaves, with the germinating stalk springing from their centre; but my scrawl was tired and careless, and for once, Mr. Burgess has copied _too_ accurately.

[13] Learn this word, at any rate; and if you know any Greek, learn also this group of words: "[Greek: hôs rhiza en gê dipsôsêi]," which you may chance to meet with, and even to think about, some day.

[14] "Duhamel, botanist of the last century, tells us that, wishing to preserve a field of good land from the roots of an avenue of elms which were exhausting it, he cut a ditch between the field and avenue to intercept the roots. But he saw with surprise those of the roots which had not been cut, go down behind the slope of the ditch to keep out of the light, go under the ditch, and into the field again." And the Swiss naturalist Bonnet said wittily, apropos of a wonder of this sort, "that sometimes it was difficult to distinguish a cat from a rosebush."

[15] As the first great office of the mosses is the gathering of earth, so that of the grasses is the binding of it. Theirs the Enchanter's toil, not in vain,--making ropes out of sea-sand.

[16] Drosidæ, in our school nomenclature, is the general name, including the four great tribes, iris, asphodel, amaryllis, and lily. See reason for this name given in the 'Queen of the Air,' Section II.

[17] The only use of a great part of our existing nomenclature is to enable one botanist to describe to another a plant which the other has not seen. When the science becomes approximately perfect, all known plants will be properly figured, so that nobody need describe them; and unknown plants be so rare that nobody will care to learn a new and difficult language, in order to be able to give an account of what in all probability he will never see.

[18] An excellent book, nevertheless.

[19] Lindley, 'Introduction to Botany,' vol. i., p. 21. The terms "wholly obsolete," says an authoritative botanic friend. Thank Heaven!

[20] "You should see the girders on under-side of the Victoria Water-lily, the most wonderful bit of engineering, of the kind, I know of."--('Botanical friend.')

[21] Roughly, Cyllene 7,700 feet high; Erymanthus 7,000; Mænalus 6,000.

[22] _March 3rd._--We now ascend the roots of the mountain called Kastaniá, and begin to pass between it and the mountain of Alonístena, which is on our right. The latter is much higher than Kastaniá, and, like the other peaked summits of the Mænalian range, is covered with firs, and deeply at present with snow. The snow lies also in our pass. At a fountain in the road, the small village of Bazeníko is half a mile on the right, standing at the foot of the Mænalian range, and now covered with snow.

Saetá is the most lofty of the range of mountains, which are in face of Levídhi, to the northward and eastward; they are all a part of the chain which extends from Mount Khelmós, and connects that great summit with Artemisium, Parthenium, and Parnon. Mount Saetá is covered with firs. The mountain between the plain of Levídhi and Alonístena, or, to speak by the ancient nomenclature, that part of the Mænalian range which separates the Orchomenia from the valleys of Helisson and Methydrium, is clothed also with large forests of the same trees; the road across this ridge from Lavídhi to Alonístena is now impracticable on account of the snow.

I am detained all day at Levídhi by a heavy fall of snow, which before the evening has covered the ground to half a foot in depth, although the village is not much elevated above the plain, nor in a more lofty situation than Tripolitzá.

_March 4th._--Yesterday afternoon and during the night the snow fell in such quantities as to cover all the plains and adjacent mountains; and the country exhibited this morning as fine a snow-scene as Norway could supply. As the day advanced and the sun appeared, the snow melted rapidly, but the sky was soon overcast again, and the snow began to fall.

[23] Just in time, finding a heap of gold under an oak tree some thousand years old, near Arundel, I've made them out: Eight, divided by three; that is to say, three couples of petals, with two odd little ones inserted for form's sake. No wonder I couldn't decipher them by memory.

[24] Figs. 8 and 9 are both drawn and engraved by Mr. Burgess.

[25] Of Vespertilian science generally, compare 'Eagles' Nest,' pp. 25 and 179.

[26] The mathematical term is 'rhomb.'

[27] [Greek: hês to sperma artopoieitai.]

[28] [Greek: epimêkes echousa to kephalion.] Dioscorides makes no effort to distinguish species, but gives the different names as if merely used in different places.

[29] It is also used sometimes of the garden poppy, says Dioscorides, "[Greek: dia to rhein ex autês ton opon]"--"because the sap, opium, flows from it."

[30] See all the passages quoted by Liddell.

[31] I find this chapter rather tiresome on re-reading it myself, and cancel some farther criticism of the imitation of this passage by Virgil, one of the few pieces of the Æneid which are purely and vulgarly imitative, rendered also false as well as weak by the introducing sentence, "Volvitur Euryalus leto," after which the simile of the drooping flower is absurd. Of criticism, the chief use of which is to warn all sensible men from such business, the following abstract of Diderot's notes on the passage, given in the 'Saturday Review' for April 29th, 1871, is worth preserving. (Was the French critic really not aware that Homer _had_ written the lines his own way?)

"Diderot illustrates his theory of poetical hieroglyphs by no quotations, but we can show the manner of his minute and sometimes fanciful criticism by repeating his analysis of the passage of Virgil wherein the death of Euryalus is described:--

'Pulchrosque per artus It cruor, inque humeros cervix collapsa recumbit; Purpureus veluti cum flos succisus aratro Languescit moriens; lassove papavera collo Demisere caput, pluvia cum forte gravantur.'

"The sound of 'It cruor,' according to Diderot, suggests the image of a jet of blood; 'cervix collapsa recumbit,' the fall of a dying man's head upon his shoulder; 'succisus' imitates the use of a cutting scythe (not plough); 'demisere' is as soft as the eye of a flower; 'gravantur,' on the other hand, has all the weight of a calyx, filled with rain; 'collapsa' marks an effort and a fall, and similar double duty is performed by 'papavera,' the first two syllables symbolizing the poppy upright, the last two the poppy bent. While thus pursuing his minute investigations, Diderot can scarcely help laughing at himself, and candidly owns that he is open to the suspicion of discovering in the poem beauties which have no existence. He therefore qualifies his eulogy by pointing out two faults in the passage. 'Gravantur,' notwithstanding the praise it has received, is a little too heavy for the light head of a poppy, even when filled with water. As for 'aratro,' coming as it does after the hiss of 'succisus,' it is altogether abominable. Had Homer written the lines, he would have ended with some hieroglyph, which would have continued the hiss or described the fall of a flower. To the hiss of 'succisus' Diderot is warmly attached. Not by mistake, but in order to justify the sound, he ventures to translate 'aratrum' into 'scythe,' boldly and rightly declaring in a marginal note that this is not the meaning of the word."

[32] And I have too harshly called our English vines, 'wicked weeds of Kent,' in Fors Clavigera, xxvii. 11. Much may be said for Ale, when we brew it for our people honestly.

[33] Has my reader ever thought,--I never did till this moment,--how it perfects the exquisite character which Scott himself loved, as he invented, till he changed the form of the novel, that his habitual interjection should be this word;--not but that the oath, by conscience, was happily still remaining then in Scotland, taking the place of the mediæval 'by St. Andrew,' we in England, long before the Scot, having lost all sense of the Puritanical appeal to private conscience, as of the Catholic oath, 'by St. George;' and our uncanonized 'by George' in sonorous rudeness, ratifying, not now our common conscience, but our individual opinion.

[34] 'Jotham,' 'Sum perfectio eorum,' or 'Consummatio eorum.' (Interpretation of name in Vulgate index.)

[35] If you will look at the engraving, in the England and Wales series, of Turner's Oakhampton, you will see its use.

[36] General assertions of this kind must always be accepted under indulgence,--exceptions being made afterwards.

[37] I use 'round' rather than 'cylindrical,' for simplicity's sake.

[38] Carduus Arvensis. 'Creeping Thistle,' in Sowerby; why, I cannot conceive, for there is no more creeping in it than in a furzebush. But it especially haunts foul and neglected ground; so I keep the Latin name, translating 'Waste-Thistle.' I could not show the variety of the curves of the involucre without enlarging; and if, on this much increased scale, I had tried to draw the flower, it would have taken Mr. Allen and me a good month's more work. And I had no more a month than a life, to spare: so the

## action only of the spreading flower is indicated, but the involucre drawn

with precision.

[39] The florets gathered in the daisy are cinquefoils, examined closely. No system founded on colour can be very general or unexceptionable: but the splendid purples of the pansy, and thistle, which will be made one of the lower composite groups under Margarita, may justify the general assertion of this order's being purple.

[40] See Miss Yonge's exhaustive account of the name, 'History of Christian Names,' vol. i., p. 265.

[41] (Du Cange.) The word 'Margarete' is given as heraldic English for pearl, by Lady Juliana Berners, in the book of St. Albans.

[42] Recent botanical research makes this statement more than dubitable. Nevertheless, on no other supposition can the forms and action of tree-branches, so far as at present known to me, be yet clearly accounted for.

[43] Not always in muscular power; but the framework on which strong muscles are to act, as that of an insect's wing, or its jaw, is never insectile.

[44] It is one of the three cadences, (the others being of the words rhyming to 'mind' and 'way,') used by Sir Philip Sidney in his marvellous paraphrase of the 55th Psalm.

[45] Lectures on the Families of Speech, by the Rev. F. Farrer Longman, 1870. Page 81.

[46] I only profess, you will please to observe, to ask questions in Proserpina. Never to answer any. But of course this chapter is to introduce some further inquiry in another place.

[47] See Introduction, pp. 5-8.

[48] See Sowerby's nomenclature of the flower, vol. ix., plate 1703.

[49] Linnæus used this term for the oleanders; but evidently with less accuracy than usual.

[50] "[Greek: anthê porphuroeidê]" says Dioscorides, of the race generally,--but "[Greek: anthê de hupoporphura]" of this particular one.

[51] I offer a sample of two dozen for good papas and mammas to begin with:--

Angraecum. Anisopetalum. Brassavola. Brassia. Caelogyne. Calopogon. Corallorrhiza. Cryptarrhena. Eulophia. Gymnadenia. Microstylis. Octomeria. Ornithidium. Ornithocephalus. Platanthera. Pleurothallis. Pogonia. Polystachya. Prescotia. Renanthera. Rodriguezia. Stenorhyncus. Trizeuxis. Xylobium.

[52] Compare