THE LIBRARY
OF
THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA
PRESENTED BY
PROF. CHARLES A. KOFOID AND MRS. PRUDENCE W. KOFOID
FLORA DOMESTICA,
Oft
THE PORTABLE FLOWER-GAKDEN ;
WITH
DIRECTIONS FOR THE TREATMENT OF PLANTS IN POTS;
AND
ILLUSTRATIONS FROM THE WORKS OF THE POETS.
" How exquisitely sweet This rich display of flowers, This airy wild of fragrance So lovely to the eye, And to the sense so sweet.*'
ANDREIJTI'S ADAM.
" And round about he taught sweet flowers to grow."
SPENSER.
THE SECOND EDITION, WITH ADDITIONS.
LONDON : PRINTED FOR TAYLOR AND HESSEY,
93, FLEET-STREET, AND 13, WATERLOO-PLACE, PALL-MALL.
1825.
$£419
SIR WILLIAM KNIGHTON, BART.
SIR,
I TAKE the liberty of laying this Volume before you, in humble acknowledgment of the gra- titude and respect with which L remain,
SIR, Your humble and obedient Servant,
THE AUTHOR.
DC
A
LIST OF THE PLANTS
DESCRIBED IN THIS WORK.
A.
Ad6nis f- , ' J
African Lily Agapanthus 4
African Marygold, see Tagetes. Agave, see Aloe.
Almond-tree Amygdala 5
A'loe 6
A maranth Amaranthus 18
Amaryllis, see Star Lily.
Andromeda 22
Anemone Anemone 23
Antholy'za. 28
Anthy'llis 30
Antirrhinum 30
A'rbor Vitae Thuja 32
A'rbutus 35
A'rum Calla ^Ethiopica 38
A'sphodel Asphodelus 41
A'ster 43
Aucuba Japanica 45
Auricula Primula Auricula 46
Azalea $2
B.
Balm Melissa 53
Balm of Gilead, see Dragon's-head.
Balsam Impatiens 56
Basil O'cymum 58
Bay Laurus Nobilis 60
Belvedere Chenopodium Scoparia 71
Bitter-vetch O'robus 71
Bloodwort Sanguinaria 72
Box-tree Buxus 73
Broom Spartium 77
Browallia . 83
viii LIST OF PLANTS.
Page
c.
Camellia Japonica 83
Campanula 84
Candy-tuft Iberis r 88
Canterbury Bells, see Campanula.
Cardamine 89
Cardinal-flower Lobelia 91
Catchfly Silene 92
Celandine Chelidonium . . 92
Centaury Centaurea 98
Cereus CSctus 100
Cerinthe 1 02
Chelone 103
China Rose, see Hibiscus.
Chion£nthus 1 04
Chironia 1 05
Chrysanthemum 105
Cineraria 1 07
Cistus 108
Clematis Ill
Clethra 114
Cock's-comb, see Amaranth.
C61chicum 114
Columbine Aquilegia 115
Colutea Frutescens 117
Convolvulus 118
Coreopsis 121
Corn-flag Gladi61us 1 22
Coronilla 123
Cotyledon 1 24
Cowslip Primula Veris 125
of Jerusalem Pulmonaria 129
Crinum 130
Crocus 130
Cy'clamen 1 33
Cy'tisus 134
D.
Dahlia 138
Daisy Bellis 139
Danewort . . ,. Sambucus E'bulus 149
Daphne 150
Dog's-bane Ap6cynum 153
Dragon's-head Dracocephalum 156
Dry'as 157
E.
Egg-plant Sol«mum Melongena 158
LIST OF PLANTS. IX
Page
Erinus 159
Everlasting GnaphaJium 159
F.
Foxglove Digitalis 161
Fritillary Fritillaria 163
Fuchsia *. 165
Fumitory Fumaria 1 66
G.
Gentian Gentiana 167
Geranium Erodium — Pelargonium .... 1 69
Germander Teucrium 1 76
Globe-flower Trollius 1 77
Globularia 1 78
Goat's-Rue Galega 179
Golden-Locks . . Chrysocoma 180
Gourd Cucurbita 181
Greek Valerian Polemonium Caeruleum 183
Guelder- Rose Viburnum O'pulus 184
H.
Hawthorn Cratee'gus Oxyacantha 185
Heart's-ease Viola Tricolor 190
Heath Erica 198
Heliotrope Heliotropium 201
Helmet-flower Scutellaria 203
Helonias 203
Hepatica Anem6ne Hepatica 204
Hibiscus 204
Hollyhock Althae'a '. 207
Honesty Lunaria 208
Honeysuckle Lonicera 209
Hottentot Cherry Cassine Maurocenia 213
Houseleek . ; Sempervivum 213
Hyacinth Hyacinthus 215
Hydrangea 224
Hypericum 226
I.
Ice-plant, see Mesembryanthemum.
Indian Corn ." Zea 229
Indian Pink Dianthus Chinensis 230
Ipomce'a 23 1
Pris 232
I'xia 236
Jerusalem Sage . ... ...... Phl6mis 237
X LIST OF PLANTS.
Page
Jessamine Jasminum 238
Jonquil, see Narcissus.
Juniper Juniperus 24 1
K.
Kalmia 244
L.
Laburnum, see Cytisus. Lady's-smock, see Cardamine.
Larkspur Delphinium 245
Laurel Prunus Laurocerasus 246
Lavatera ; 247
Lavender Lavandula. 248
Lemon-tree Citrus Limon 250
Lilac Syringa 252
Lilies Lilium 255
Lily of the Valley Convallaria 259
London-pride, see Pink and Saxifrage.
Lupine Lupinus 262
Ly'chnis 264
M.
Mallow Malva 266
Marsh Marygold Caltha Palustris 268
Marvel of Peru Mirabilis 269
Marygold Calendula 271
Maurandia Semperflorens 276
Mesembryanthemum 276
Mezereon, see Daphne.
Mignonette Reseda Odorata. . *: 280
Milkwort Poly'gala 281
Mimosa 282
Mint Mentha 287
Monk's-hood Aconitum 289
Motherwort Leonurus 290
Myrtle % Myrtus 293
N.
Narcissus 300
Nasturtium Tropae'olum 306
Nigella 3QS
O.
Oleander Nerium 308
Olive-tree Olea 310
O'range-tree Citrus Aurantium • 315
LIST OF PLANTS. XI
Page P.
Peony Paeonia 323
Passion-flower Passiflora 324
Perwinkle Vinca 326
Phillyrea Cassine Capensis 328
Phlox 329
Piiik Dianthus 330
Polyanthus Primula Vulgaris 333
P6ppy Papaver , . 334
Primrose Primula Grandifl6ra 343
Prince's-feather, see Amaranth.
Privet Ligustrum 347
Pr6tea 349
R.
Ranunculus 349
Rhododendrum Rhododendron 353
Rhodora, see Rhododendron.
Robinia .' 354
Rocket Hesperis 355
Rose-bush Rosa 357
Rosemary Rosmarinus 3.84
S.
Sage Salvia 387
Saxifrage Saxifraga 388
Scabious Scabiosa 391
Scarlet Bean Phaseolus Multiflorus 392
Sea Lavender Statice 393
Sedum 394
Sensitive -plant, see Mimosa.
Shaddock-tree Citrus Decumana 395
Snow-drop Galanthus 396
Solomon's Seal, see Lily of the Valley.
Southernwood Artemisia Abrotanum 398
Speedwell Veronica 399
Spirse'a 401
Star of Bethlehem Ornith6galum 404
Star Lily Amaryllis 404
Stock Matthiola 4-09
Stone-crop, see Sedum.
Stramonium Datura 413
Strawberry- Blite Blitum 414
Sun-flower Helianthus 415
Sweet Pea Lathynis 418
Sweet-briar, see Rose-bush. Sweet Sultan, see Centaury.
xii LIST OF PLANTS.
Page
Sweet William, see Pink.
Syr'mga Philadelphia 421
T.
Tagetes 423
Tarchonanthus 423
Tobacco Plant Nicotiana . . , 424
Tuberose Polyanthes 430
Tulip Tulipa 433
V.
Valerian Valeriana 438
Venus's Looking-glass, see Campanula.
Vervain Verbena. . . . 439
Violet Viola 441
Viper's Bugloss E'chium 448
Virginian Cowslip Dodecatheon Meadia 449
W.
Wallflower Cherianthus 449
Water Lily Nympha3a 451
Winged Pea Lotus Tetragonolobus 454
Winter Cherry Physalis 454
X.
Xeranthemum 455
Y.
Yucca 456
Z.
Zinnia 457
Zygophy'llum 458
PREFACE.
As I reside in town, and am known among my friends as a lover of the country, it has often happened that one or other of them would bring me consolation in the shape of a Myrtle, a Geranium, an Hydrangea, or a Rose-tree, &c. Liking plants, and loving my friends, I have earnestly de- sired to preserve these kind gifts ; but, utterly ignorant of their wants and habits, I have seen my plants die one after the other, rather from attention ill-directed than from the want of it. I have many times seen others in the same situation as myself, and found it a common thing, upon the arrival of a new plant, to hear its owner say, " Now, I should like to know how I am to treat this ? Should it stand within doors, or without ? should it have much water, or little ? should it stand in the sun, or in the shade ?"
Even Myrtles and Geraniums, commonly as they are seen in flower-stands, balconies, &c., often meet with an untimely death from the ignorance of their nurses. Many a plant have I destroyed, like a fond and mistaken mother, by an inexperienced tenderness ; until, in pity to these vege- table nurslings and their nurses, I resolved to obtain and to communicate such information as should be requisite for the rearing and preserving a portable garden in pots. This little volume is the result ; the information contained in it has been carefully collected from the best authorities ; and henceforward the death of any plant, owing to the
xiv PREFACE.
carelessness or ignorance of its nurse, shall be brought in, at the best, as plant-slaughter.
It has not been attempted to make a complete catalogue of every plant that may be reared in a pot or tub, but such have been selected as are the most frequently so cul- tivated ; and such as are most desirable for beauty of form or colour, luxuriance of foliage, sweetness of perfume, or from interesting or poetical associations with their history. In the belief that lovers of nature are most frequently ad- mirers of beauty in any form, such anecdotes or poetical passages are added, relating to the plants mentioned, as ap- peared likely to interest them.
To avoid endless repetition, some few general observa- tions are subjoined, but only such as are really general; and they will not be found to render a variety of references necessary for the treatment of one plant, a necessity which it is the chief aim of this little work to set aside. It is hoped that any person desiring to know the treatment proper for this or that plant, will find all the information necessary under its particular head. The General Ob- servations are comprised in so small a compass, that the merely reading them over will probably be found sufficient.
The love of flowers is a sentiment common alike to the great and to the little ; to the old and to the young ; to the learned and the ignorant, the illustrious and the obscure. While the simplest child may take delight in them, they may also prove a recreation to the most profound philo- sopher. Lord Bacon himself did not disdain to bend his mighty intellect to the subject of their culture.
Lord Burleigh also found recreation from the cares of state in his flower-garden. Ariosto, although utterly ig- norant of botanical science, took even an infantine pleasure in his little garden ; and we are informed by his son, that after sowing a variety of seeds, he would watch eagerly for
PREPACK. XV
the springing of the plants, would cherish the first peep of vegetation, and having for many days watered and tended the young plant, discover at last that he had bestowed all this tenderness upon a weed ; a weed, perhaps, which had choked the plant for which he had mistaken it.
" Nelle cose de' giardini teneva il modo medesimo, che nel far de versi, perche mai non lasciava cosa alcuna che piantasse piii di tre mesi in un loco ; e se piantava anime di persiche, o semente di alcuna sorte, andava tante volte a vedere se germogliava, che finalmcnte, rompea il germoglio : e perche avea poco cognizione d' erba, il piu delle volte prossumea che qualunque erba, cbe nascesse vicina alia cosa semi- nata da esso, fosse quella ; la custodiva con diligenza grande sin tanto che la cosa fosse ridotta a' termini, che, non accascava averne dubbio. I' mi ricordo, ch' avendo seminato de' capperi, ogni giorno andava a vjederli, e stava con una allegrezza grande di cosi bella nascione. Final- mente trovo ch' eran sambuchi, e che de' capperi non n'eran nati alcuni."
" He treated his garden as he did his verses, never leaving any thing three months in the same place. Whenever he planted or sowed any thing, he went so often to see if it sprouted, that at last he broke the shoot: and having little knowledge of plants, he took any leaves that appeared near the place where he had sown his seeds for the plants sown, and tended them with the greatest diligence, till his mistake was clear beyond doubt. I remember once when he had sown some capers, he went every day to look at them, and was delighted to see them thrive so well. At last he found these thriving plants were young elders, and that none of the capers had appeared."
NOTES BY VIRGINIO ARIOSTO, FOR A LIFE OF HIS FATHER.
Who can read this anecdote of so great a man^ and not feel an additional interest in him ! In how amiable a light it represents him ! Was a cruel, unfeeling, or selfish man ever known to take pleasure in working in his own garden ? Surely not. This love of nature in detail (if the expression may be allowed) is a union of affection, good taste, and natural piety.
How amiable a man was Cowper ! — and Evelyn, too> and Evelyn's friend, Cowley, who addressed to him a poem
xvi PREFACE.
entitled The Garden. Gessner also is represented as of a kindred sweetness of nature. They all worked in their own gardens, and with enthusiastic pleasure.
Barclay, the author of the Argenis, rented a house near the Vatican, in Rome, with a garden in which he planted the choicest flowers, principally such as grow from bulbs, which had never been seen in Rome before. He was ex- tremely fond of flowers, particularly of the bulbous kind, which are prized chiefly for their colours, and purchased the bulbs at a high price*.
Pope had the same taste, and was assisted in his horti- cultural amusements by Lord Peterborough. One of the most interesting descriptions of him represents him as being seen before dinner in a small suit of black, very neat an'd gentlemanly, with a basket in his hand containing flowers for the Miss Blounts. Rousseau, who has written some in- teresting Letters on Botany, of which among his other accomplishments he was master, found friends in the flowers, when he thought he had no others. Even his great rival Voltaire, who if he had more wit had much less sentiment, soothed his irritability and cherished his bene- volence in his garden ; and one, " greater than he," and whom I mention in the same page with any thing but an irreverent or unchristian feeling, said the noblest thing of a flower that ever was uttered : " Behold the lilies of the field, how they grow : they toil not, neither do they spin ; and yet I say unto you, that Solomon, in all his glory, was not arrayed like one of these." (Matthew, chap, vi. v. 28, 29 f.) How surely would Solomon himself have
* See Beckmann's History of Inventions, vol. i.
t Some have supposed that the flower to which Jesus alluded must have been the Tulip ; as if it were necessary for it to be really gaudy or gorgeous before it could be set above the splendour of royalty ! This may be called the art of divesting sentiment of its sentiment.
PREFACE. xvil
agreed with this beautiful speech ! for that his " wise heart" loved the flowers, the lily especially, is evident from numerous passages in his Song. The object of his love, in claiming a supreme dignity of beauty, exclaims, " I am the rose of Sharon, and the lily of the valley,"
The Emperor Dioclesian preferred his garden to a throne :
" Methinks I see great Dioclesian walk In the Salonian garden's noble shade, Which by his own imperial hands was made : I see him smile, methinks, as he does talk With the ambassadors, who come in vain T' entice him to a throne again. e If I, my friends,' said he, ' should to you show All the delights which in these gardens grow, 'Tis likelier far that you with me should stay, Than 'tis that you should carry me away : And trust me not, my friends, if, every day, I walk not here with more delight, Than ever, after the most happy fight, In triumph to the capital I rode,
To thank the gods, and to be thought myself almost a god.' "
COWLEY'S GARDEN.
Sir W. Temple desired to have his heart buried in his garden.
Lope de Vega appears to have been a lover of gardens. " As he is mentioned more than once," says Lord Holland, " by himself and his encomiasts, employed in trimming a garden, we may collect that he was fond of that occupation. Indeed his frequent description of parterres and fountains, and his continual allusion to flowers, justify his assertion, — -' that his garden furnished him with ideas, as well as vegetables and amusement *.' r
The French poet Ronsard was evidently a lover of
* See Life of Lope de Vega, vol. i. page 93.
xviii PREFACE.
flowers, as may be seen in his poems, particularly of the Rose, and the Violet, which he calls the flower of March ; these he has introduced repeatedly :
" Two flowers I love, the March-flower and the rose, The lovely rose that is to Venus dear V
Ovid was, as might be expected, a lover of gardens, and by a passage in one of his poems appears to have been fond of writing in them. It is in his T ristia, where he is regretting, during his voyage to the place of his exile, the delight he used to feel in composing his verses under the genial sky, and among the domestic comforts of his native country :
" Non haec in nostris, ut quondam, scribimus hortis, Nee, consuete, meum, lectule, corpus habes :
Jactor in indomito brumali luce profundo, Ipsaque cseruleis charta feritur aquis.
Improba pugnat hieras, indignaturque, quod ausim Scribere, se rigidas incutiente minas."
Lib. i. Eleg. 11.
••' ' -. • • ... '-.*•* .,.,»"., . •
" Not in my garden, as of old, I write, With thee, dear couch, to finish the delight : I toss upon a ghastly wintery sea, While the blue sprinkles dash my poetry. Fell winter's at his war ; and storms the more To see me dare to write for all his threatening roar."
Ovid is so fond of flowers, that, in the account of the Rape of Proserpine in his Fasti, he devotes several lines to the enumeration of the flowers gathered by her attendants. Mr. Gibbon is very angry with him for it : " Can it be believed," says he, " that the Rape of Proserpine should be described in two verses, when the enumeration of the flowers which she gathered in the garden of Eden had just
* See Mr. Cary's Translation in the London Magazine, vol. v. page 507.
PREFACE. xix
filled sixteen* ?" But surely this loitering of the poet, over his meadows and crocuses, conveys a fit sense of the plea- sure enjoyed by Proserpine and her nymphs ; a pleasure, too, for which they expressly came forth, and by the too great pursuit of which the latter were separated from their mistress.
In our own time, we may instance the late Mr. Shelley. Of a strong and powerful intellect, his manners were gentle as a summer's evening : his tastes were pure and simple : it was his delight to ramble out into the fields and woods, where he would take his book, or sometimes his pen, and having employed some hours in study, and in speculations on his favourite theme — the advancement of human hap- piness, would return home with his hat wreathed with briony, or wild convolvulus ; his hand filled with bunches of wild-flowers plucked from the hedges as he passed, and his eyes, indeed every feature, beaming with the bene- volence of his heart. He loved to stroll in his garden, chatting with a friend, or accompanied by his Homer or his Bible (of both which he was a frequent reader) : but one of his chief enjoyments was in sailing, rowing, or float ing in his little boat, upon the river : often he would lie down flat in the boat and read, with his face upwards to the sunshine. In this taste for the water he was too ven- turesome, or perhaps inconsiderate ; for it was rather a thoughtlessness of danger, than a braving of it. In the end, as it is well known, it was fatal to him : never will his friends cease to feel, or to mourn his loss ; though their mourning will be softened by the contemplation of his amiable nature, and by the memory of that gentle and spiritual countenance, " which seemed not like an inha- bitant of the earth" while it was on it.
* Gibbon's Miscellaneous Works, vol. iv. page 356.
XX PREFACE.
Among the existing lovers of flowers, it. is a pleasure to be able to name the gallant and accomplished young prince, Alexander Mavrocordato, one of the chief leaders of the Greeks in their present glorious struggle for freedom. A botanical work, not long since published in Italy, is dedicated to him on account of his known fond- ness for the subject. Thus, in every respect, he inherits the feelings of his ancestors. This is the same prince to whom Mr. Shelley dedicated his Hellas. Among the Greeks this taste was very general, as may be gathered from many ancient writers. In the following passage from the Travels of Anacharsis, several of these authorities are assembled : the author describes a visit to a friend who had retired to his country-house :
ff Apres avoir traverse une basse-cour peuplee de poules, fie canards, et d'autres oiseaux domestiques, nous visitames 1'ecurie, la bergerie, ainsi que le jardin des fleurs, ou nous vimes successivement briller les narcisses, les jacinthes, les anemones, les iris, les violettes de diffe- rentes couleurs, les roses de diverses especes, et toutes sortes de plantes odoriferantes. Vous ne serez pas surpris, me dit-il, du soin que je prends de les cultiver : vous savez que nous en parons les temples, les autels, les statues de nos dieux; que nous en couronnons nos tetes dans nos repas et dans nos ceremonies saintes; que nous les repandons sur nos tables et sur nos lits ; que nous avons meme Tatten- tion d'offrir a nos divinitc's les fleurs qui leur sont les plus agreables. D'ailleurs, un agriculteur ne doit point n<%liger les petits profits ; toutes les fois que j'envoie au marche d'Athenes, du bois, du charbon, des denrees et des fruits, j'y joins quelques corbeilles de fleurs qui sont enlevces a 1'instant*."
" Having crossed a court-yard peopled with fowls, ducks, and other domestic birds, we visited the stable, the sheep-fold, and the flower- garden ; where we saw in succession narcissuses, hyacinths, anemonies, irises, violets of different colours, roses of various kinds, and all sorts of odoriferous plants. You will not be surprised, said he, at the care I take in cultivating them ; for you know that we adorn with them
* Voyage du Jeune Anacharsis en Grece, vers le milieu du qua- tricme siecle avant 1'ere vulgaire ; par J J. Barthelemi. Tome cin- quieme.
PREFACE. xxi
the temples, altars, and statues of our gods : that we crown our heads with them in our festivals, and holy ceremonies ; that we scatter them upon our tables, and our beds ; that we even consider the kinds of flowers most agreeable to our divinities. Besides/ an agriculturist should not neglect small profits ; whenever I send to the market of Athens, wood, provision, or fruit, I add some baskets of flowers, and they are seized instantly."
In another part of the same work, the author describes a marriage ceremony in the Island of .Delos, in which flowers, shrubs, and trees make a conspicuous figure. He tells us that the inhabitants of the island assembled at day-break, crowned with flowers : that flowers were strewed in the path of the bride and bridegroom : the house was garlanded with them : singers and dancers appeared, crowned with oak, myrtle, and hawthorns : the bride and bridegroom were crowned with poppies ; and upon their approach to the temple a priest received them at the en- trance, presenting to each a branch of ivy, — a symbol of the tie which was to unite them for ever *.
It was not in their sports only that the Greeks were so lavish of their flowers : they crowned the dead with them ; and the mourners wore them in the funeral ceremonies. Flowers seem to have been to this tasteful people a sort of poetic language, whereby they expressed the intensity of feelings to which they found common language in- adequate. Thus we find that their grief, and their joy, their religion, and their sports, their gratitude, admiration, and love, were alike expressed by flowers.
And flowers do speak a language, a clear and intel- ligible language : ask Mr. Wordsworth, for to him they have spoken, until they excited " thoughts that lie too deep for tears ;" ask Chaucer, for he held companionship with them in the meadows ; ask any of the poets, ancient or modern. Observe them, reader, love them, linger over * Vol. vi. chapter 77.
xxil PREFACE.
them ; and ask your own heart if they do not speak affec- tion, benevolence, and piety. None have better under- stood the language of flowers than the simple-minded peasant-poet, Clare, whose volumes are like a beautiful country, diversified with woods, meadows, heaths, and flower-gardens : the following is a pleasing specimen :
(t Bowing adorers of the gale, Ye cowslips delicately pale,
Upraise your loaded stems ; Unfold your cups in splendour, speak ! Who decked you with that ruddy streak, And gilt your golden gems ?
" Violets, sweet tenants of the shade, In purple's richest pride arrayed,
Your errand here fulfil ; Go bid the artist's simple stain Your lustre imitate, in vain,
And match your Maker's skill.
" Daisies, ye flowers of lowly hirth, Embroiderers of the carpet earth,
That stud the velvet sod ; Open to spring's refreshing air, In sweetest smiling bloom declare
Your Maker, and my God *."
This poet is truly a lover of Nature ; in her humblest attire she still is pleasing to him, and the sight of a simple weed seems to him a source of delight :
' ' There's many a seeming weed proves sweet, As sweet as garden-flowers can bef."
In his lines to Cowper Green, he celebrates plants that seldom find a bard to sing them : having enumerated several, he continues ;—
" Still thou ought'st to have thy meed, To show thy flower, as well as weed.
* Clare's Village Minstrel and other Poems, vol. ii. page 61. t Clare's Poems on Rural Life, &c. page 63.
PREFACE.
Though no fays, from May-day's lap,
Cowslips on thee dare to drop ;
Still does nature yearly bring
Fairest heralds of the spring :
On thy wood's warm sunny side
Primrose blooms in all its pride ;
Violets carpet all thy bowers ;
And anemone's weeping flowers,
Dyed in winter's snow and rime,
Constant to their early time,
White the leaf- strewn ground again,
And make each wood a garden then.
Thine 's full many a pleasing bloom
Of blossoms lost to all perfume :
Thine the dandelion flowers,
Gilt with dew, like suns with showers ;
Harebells thine, and bugles blue,
And cuckoo flowers all sweet to view ;
Thy wild-woad on each road we see ;
And medicinal betony,
By thy woodside railing, reeves
With antique mullein's flannel leaves.
These, though mean, the flowers of waste,
Planted here in nature's haste,
Display to the discerning eye
Her loved, wild variety :
Each has charms in nature's book
I cannot pass without a look.
And thou hast fragrant herbs and seed,
Which only garden's culture need :
Thy horehound tufts, I love them well,
And ploughman's spikenard's spicy smell ;
Thy thyme, strong-scented 'neath one's feet ;
Thy marjoram beds, so doubly sweet ;
And pennyroyals creeping twine :
These, each succeeding each, are thine,
Spreading o'er thee, wild and gay,
Blessing spring, or summer's day.
As herb, flower, weed, adorn thy scene,
Pleased I seek thee, Cowper Green."
VILLAGE MINSTREL, &c. vol. i. page 113.
The eloquence of flowers is not perhaps so generally
xxiv PREFACE.
understood in this country as it might be, but Mr. Bowring scarcely does us justice in the following observations :
" In the Peninsula the wildest flowers are the sweetest. There are hedges of myrtles, and geraniums, and pome- granates, and towering aloes. The sunflower and the bloody warrior (Aleli grosero) occupy the parterre : they are 110 favourites of mine.
" Flowers ! what a hundred associations the word brings to my mind ! Of what countless songs, sweet and sacred, delicate and divine, are they the subject ! A flower in England is something to the botanist, — but only if it be rare ; to the florist, — but only if it be beautiful : even the poet and the moralizer seldom bend down to its eloquent silence. The peasant never utters to it an ejaculation — the ploughman (all but one) carelessly tears it up with his share — no maiden thinks of wreathing it — no youth aspires to wear it : But in Spain ten to one but it becomes a minister of love, that it hears the voice of poetry, that it crowns the brow of beauty. Thus how sweetly an anony- mous cancionero sings :
" Put on your brightest richest dress, Wear all your gems, blest vale of ours ! My fair one comes in her loveliness, She comes to gather flowers.
" Garland me wreaths, thou fertile vale ; Woods of green your coronets bring ; Pinks of red, and lilies pale, Come with your fragrant offering. Mingle your charms of hue and smell, Which Flora wakes in her spring-tide hours ! My fair one comes across the dell, She comes to gather flowers.
" Twilight of morn ! from thy misty tower Scatter the trembling pearls around,
PREFACE: xxv
Hang up thy gems on fruit and flower, Bespangle the dewy ground ! Phoebus, rest on thy ruby wheels- Look, and envy this world of ours ; For my fair one now descends the hills, She comes to gather flowers.
" List ! for the breeze on wings serene Through the light foliage sails ; Hidden amidst the forest green Warble the nightingales ! Hailing the glorious birth of day With music's best, divinest powers, Hither my fair one bends her way, She comes to gather flowers."
LONDON MAGAZINE, Spanish Romances, No. 3.
For the most part of our countrymen, I fear they do not allow themselves leisure to admire or enjoy the beauties of nature ; yet it cannot be said that they are utterly in- sensible to them; for with regard to flowers at least we may observe, that on Sundays every village beau, nay every straggling townsman who comes on that day within reach of a flower, has one in his button-hole.
It was, perhaps, the general power of sympathy upon the subject of plants, which caused them to be connected with some of the earliest events that history records. The mythologies of all nations are full of them ; and in all times they have been associated with the soldiery, the government, and the arts. Thus the patriot was crowned with oak ; the hero and the poet with bay ; and beauty with the myrtle. Peace had her olive ; Bacchus his ivy ; and whole groves of oak-trees were thought to send out oracular voices in the winds. One of the most pleasing parts of state-splendor has been associated with flowers, as Shakspeare seems to have had in his mind when he wrote that beautiful line respecting the accomplished prince, Hamlet :
" The expectancy and rose of the fair state."
xxvi PREFACE.
It was this that brought the gentle family of roses into such unnatural broils in the civil wars : and still the united countries of Great Britain have each a floral emblem : Scotland has its thistle, Ireland its shamrock, and England the rose. France, under the Bourbons, has the golden lily. It was an annual custom with the Popes to send a golden rose perfumed to the prince who happened to be most in their good graces.
Our different festivals have each their own peculiar plant, or plants, to be used in their celebration : at Easter the willow as a substitute for the palm ; at Christmas, the holly and the mistletoe ; on May-day every flower in bloom, but particularly the hawthorn or May-bush. In Persia they have a festival called the Feast of Roses, which lasts the whole time they are in bloom — (See ROSES, page 371). Formerly it was the custom, and still is in some parts of the country, to scatter flowers on the celebration of a wedding, a christening, or even of a funeral (See ROSES, page 364, and ROSEMARY, page 384).
It was formerly the custom also to carry garlands before the bier of a maiden, and to hang them, and scatter flowers over her grave :
" Her death was doubtful ;
And, but that great command o'ersways the order, She should in ground unsanctified have lodged Till the last trumpet ; for charitable prayers, Shards, flints, and pebbles should be thrown on her, Yet here she is allowed her virgin crants*, Her maiden strewments, and the bringing home Of bell and burial." The Queen scattering flowers :
" Sweets to the sweet. Farewell !
I hoped thy bride-bed to have decked, sweet maid, And not have strewed thy grave."
HAMLET, Act v. Scene 1.
* Crants is the German word for garlands.
PREFACE. xxvii
In Tripoli, on the celebration of a wedding, the baskets of sweetmeats, &c. sent as wedding presents, are covered with flowers ; and although it is well known that they fre- quently communicate the plague, the inhabitants will even prefer running the risk, when that dreadful disease is abroad, rather than lose the enjoyment they have in their love of flowers. When a woman in Tripoli dies, a large bouquet of fresh flowers, if they can be procured, if not, of artificial, is fastened at the head of her coffin. Upon the death of a Moorish lady of quality, every place is filled with fresh flowers and burning perfumes : at the head of the body is placed a large bouquet, of part artificial, and part natural, and richly ornamented with silver: and additions are continually made to it. The author who de- scribes these customs also mentions a lady of high rank, who regularly attended the tomb of her daughter, who had been three years dead : she always kept it in repair, and, with the exception of the great mosque, it was one of the grandest in Tripoli. From the time of the young lady's death, the tomb had always been supplied with the most expensive flowers, placed in beautiful vases ; and, in addition to these, a great quantity of fresh Arabian Jessa- mines, threaded on thin slips of the Palm-leaf, were hung in festoons and tassels about this revered sepulchre. The mausoleum of the royal family, which is called the Turbar, is of the purest white marble, and is filled with an immense quantity of fresh flowers ; most of the tombs being dressed with festoons of Arabian Jessamine and large bunches of variegated flowers, consisting of Orange, Myrtle, Red and White Roses, &c. They afford a perfume which those who are not habituated to such choice flowers can scarcely conceive. The tombs are mostly of white, a few inlaid with coloured marble. A manuscript Bible, which was presented by a Jew to the Synagogue, was adorned with
xxvm PREFACE.
flowers ; and silver vases filled with flowers were placed upon the ark which contained the sacred MS*.
The ancients used wreaths of flowers in their entertain- ments, not only for pleasure, but also from a notion that their odour prevented the wine from intoxicating them : they used other perfumes on the same account. Beds of flowers are not merely fictitious (see ROSES, page 370). The Highlanders of Scotland commonly sleep on heath, which is said to make a delicious bed ; and beds are, in Italy, often filled with the leaves of trees, instead of down or feathers. It is an old joke against the effeminate Sy- barites, that one of them complaining he had not slept all night, and being asked the reason why, said that a rose- leaf had got folded under him.
In Naples, and in the Vale of Cachemere (I have been told also that it sometimes occurs in Chester), gardens are formed on the roofs of houses : " On a standing roof of wood is laid a covering of fine earth, which shelters the building from the great quantity of snow that falls in the winter season. This fence communicates an equal warmth in winter, as a refreshing coolness in summer, when the tops of the houses, which are planted with a variety of flowers, exhibit at a distance the spacious view of a beau- tifully chequered parterre." (FoR STER.) The famous hang- ing gardens of Babylon were on the enormous walls of that city.
A garden usually makes a part of every Paradise, even of Mahomet's, from which women are excluded, — women, whom gallantry has so associated with flowers, that we are told, in the Malay language, one word serves for both -(-. In Milton's Paradise, the occupation of Adam and Eve
* See Tully's Narrative of a Residence in Tripoli, t See Lalla Rookh, page 303. Sixth edition.
PREFACE. xxix
«
was to tend the flowers, to prune the luxuriant branches, and support the roses, heavy with beauty (see ROSES, page 374). Poets have taken pleasure in painting gardens in all the brilliancy of imagination. See the garden of Alcinous, in Homer's Odyssey ; those of Morgana, Alcina, and Ar- inida, in the Italian poets : the gardens fair
" Of Hesperus and his daughters three, Who sing about the golden tree ;"
and Proserpina's garden, and the Bower of Bliss in Spen- ser's Fairie Queene. The very mention of their names seems to embower one in leaves and blossoms.
It is a matter of some taste to arrange a bouquet of flowers judiciously ; even in language, we have a finer idea of colours, when such are placed together as look well to- gether in substance. Do we read of white, purple, red, and yellow flowers, they do not present to us so exquisite a picture, as if we read of yellow and purple, white and red. Their arrangement has been happily touched upon by some of our poets :
" Th' Azores send
Their jessamine ; her jessamine, remote Caffraia : foreigners from many lands, They form one social shade, as if convened By magic summons of th' Orphean lyre. Yet just arrangement, rarely brought to pass But by a master's hand, disposing well The gay diversities of leaf and flower, Must lend its aid t' illustrate all their charms, And dress the regular, yet various scene. Plant behind plant aspiring, in the van The dwarfish ; in the rear retired, but still Sublime above the rest, the statelier stand."
COWPER.
Tibi lilia plenis
Ecce ferunt nymphse calathis : tibi Candida Nais,
XXX PREFACE.
Pallentes violas et summa papavera carpens, Narcissum et florem jungit bene olentis anethi. Turn casia, atque aliis intexens suavibus herbis, Mollia luteola pingit vaccinia caltha."
VIRGIL, Eclogue 2.
" Behold the nymphs bring thee lilies in full baskets : for thee fair Nais, cropping the pale violets and heads of poppies,, joins the nar- cissus, and flower of sweet-smelling anise : then, interweaving them with cassia and other fragrant herbs, sets off the soft hyacinth with the saffron marygold."
DAVIDSON'S TRANSLATION.
Drayton runs riot on the subject : a nymph in his Muse's Elysium says,
" Here damask-roses, white and red, Out of my lap first take I, Which still shall run along the thread ; My chiefest flower this make I. Amongst these roses in a row, Next place I pinks in plenty, These double-daisies then for show, And will not this be dainty ? The pretty pansy then I'll tye Like stones some chain inchasing ; And next to them, their near ally, The purple violet placing. The curious choice clove July-flower, Whose kinds, hight the carnation, For sweetness of most sovereign power Shall help my wreath to fashion ; Whose sundry colours of one kind, First from one root derived, Them in their several suits I'll bind, My garland so contrived : A course of cowslips then I '11 stick, And here and there (though sparely) The pleasant primrose down I'll prick, Like pearls which will show rarely; Then with these marygolds I '11 make My garland somewhat swelling, These honeysuckles then I '11 take, Whose sweets shall help their smelling.
PREFACE. xxxi
The lily and the fleur-de-lis,
For colour much contenting,
For that I them do only prize,
They are but poor in scenting ;
The daffodil most dainty is
To match with these in meetness ;
The columbine compared to this,
All much alike for sweetness :
These in their natures only are
Fit to emboss the border,
Therefore I '11 take especial care
To place them in their order :
Sweet-williams, campions, sops-in-wine,
One by another neatly ;
Thus have I made this wreath of mine,
And finished it featly."
DRAYTON.
" So did the maidens with their various flowers
Deck up their windows and make neat their bowers :
Using such cunning as they did dispose
The ruddy peony with the lighter rose,
The monkshood with the bugloss, and entwine
The white, the blue, the flesh-like columbine
With pinks, sweet-williams ; that far off the eye
Could not the manner of their mixtures spy."
W. BROWNE.
What is here said on the subject of arrangement is of course addressed to those who are unacquainted with botany ; those who study that delightful science will, most probably, prefer a botanical arrangement, observing how- ever to place the smaller plants of each division next the spectator, and thus proceeding gradually to the tallest and most distant ; so that the several divisions will form strips irregular in their width.
The exertions of Lamarcke and the Jussieus have now so improved the ancient and original method of arranging, plants by their natural affinities to each other, that most of the young botanists have adopted it. The only work
xxxii PREFACE.
in which this truly scientific method is applied to all the plants growing wild in the British Islands is Gray's Na- tural Arrangement ; which also contains an Introduction to Botany in general, on a more extensive scale than Withering's, as it includes the explanation of all the new terms which have been lately introduced into botany by the cultivators of the natural system.
Although it is true that near London plants in general will not thrive so well as in a purer air, and that people in the country have usually some portion of ground to make a garden of, yet such persons as are condemned to a town life will do well to obtain whatever substitute for a garden may be in their power ; for there is confessedly no greater folly than that of refusing all pleasure, because we cannot have all we desire. In Venice, where the nature of the place is such as to afford no garden ground, it is common to see the windows filled with pots, and they have a market for the sale of them. Those who can afford it, indeed, have gardens elsewhere ; but by far the greater number are obliged to content themselves with a portable garden. A lover of flowers, who cannot have a garden or a green- house, will gladly cherish any thing that has the aspect of a green leaf :
" These serve him with a hint
That Nature lives : that sight-refreshing green
Is still the livery she delights to wear,
Though sickly samples of th' exuberant whole.
What are the casements lined with creeping herbs,
The prouder sashes fronted with a range
Of orange, myrtle, or the fragrant weed,
The Frenchman's darling * ? Are they not all proofs,
That man immured in cities, still retains
His inborn, inextinguishable thirst
* Mignonette.
PREFACE. XXXlll
Of rural scenes, compensating his loss By supplemental shifts, the best he may ?"
COWPER.
With this passage, which brings us round to the direct object of this little work, it will be as well for me to con- clude the preface. I am as fond of books as of flowers ; but in all that regards authorship, I fear I am as little able to produce the one, as to create the others. I therefore hasten to the more mechanical part of my work, and to the kind aid of my quotations. I shall only add, if any body would like to have additional authority for the cultivation of a few domestic flowers, that Gray, with all his love of the grander features of nature, and all his nice sense of his own dignity, did not think it beneath him to supply the want of a larger garden with flower-pots in his windows, to look to them entirely himself, and to take them in, with all due tenderness, of an evening. See his delightful letters to his friends.
For a poetical translation of some quotations, of which there was before either no English version, or none that did justice to the original, as well as for some general cor- rections, &c. I am indebted to the assistance of a friend, whose kindness I most gratefully and somewhat proudly acknowledge, in sparing a few hours from his own im- portant studies, to give this little volume some pretension to public notice.
Although no other flowers are considered in this work, but those usually grown in pots ; yet this comprises a larger collection than most persons are likely to cultivate. They indeed who are much attached to the beauties of the vegetable tribes may add others not here mentioned, go very deep into the science of botany, and yet keep within the limits of a garden of pots. Some even of the most scientific botanists prefer a domestic garden of this kind.
xxxiv PREFACE.
For example, Richard Anthony Salisbury, Esq. the uni- versally acknowledged head of our English botanists, no longer cultivates his former gardens at Chapel Allerton, Yorkshire, or at Mill Hill, Middlesex, but confines his at- tention to a choice collection of the most curious plants in pots, arranged in the yard of his house in Queen Street, Edgeware Road. In like manner, Messrs. Loddiges, nurserymen at Hackney, have a very large collection of hardy herbaceous plants, in small pots, set on beds of scoria, to keep the soil contained in them moist.
June 5, 1825.
Considerable additions have been made to this volume since its first publication, as well with regard to the bio- graphy of plants, and to their titles (whether of modern date, or held by inheritance from a long line of noble an- cestry), as to poetical illustrations. To the latter, indeed, it is not easy to affix limits : a collection of all the passages on this subject, even though it were confined to the poets of our own country, would fill volumes ; yet it is often a painful task to reject them. There is an inspiration in the works of nature which gives a more than usual power even to talents of a common order, when treating of them ; and although we take greater delight in the rose, the violet, or the lily, we also love to pluck from the hedge-side the haw- thorn and the ragged-robin. Wordsworth very naturally describes the inclination we have to gather wild flowers :
-<f We paused, one now,
And now the other, to point out, perchance To pluck, some flower or water-weed, too fair
PREFACE. xxxv
Either to be divided from the place On which it grew, or to be left alone To its own beauty."
On some occasions it has been necessary not only to cast aside the hedge-flowers of poetry, but also to pass by the roses. Even Chaucer, so copious are his praises of some of his favourite flowers, we could not venture to quote so in- satiably as inclination would lead us. Most of our best poets have touched upon the beauty of flowers, more or less : — Chaucer, Spenser, Milton, and Shakspeare, the great poetic luminaries of our island.
the sages
Who have left streaks of light athwart their ages,"
have all dwelt largely on them. Ben Jonson, too, and Beaumont and Fletcher, Drayton, Dryden, Thomson, Cowper, &c. In our own times, Wordsworth, Byron, Moore, Hunt, Keats, Scott, Montgomery, Cornwall, and Clare, have revelled in them like bees. It has been re- marked as a defect in Pope, that he says little or nothing, in his poems, of the works of nature ; and it does appear an extraordinary thing in a poet, so tremblingly alive to beauty in every shape as poets naturally are, and necessarily must be. Pope was a poet for the drawing-room ; but there are few even among ungifted individuals totally insensible to the soothing influence of flowers and trees :
" The enamelled earth, that from her verdant breast Lavished spontaneously ambrosial flowers, The very sight of which can soothe to rest A thousand cares, and charm our sweetest hours."
GARCILASSO.
ce This lucid fount, whose murmurs fill tbs mind, The verdant forests waving with the wind, The odours wafted from the mead, the viewers In which the wild bee sits and sings for hours ;
xxxvi PREFACE.
These might the moodiest misanthrope employ, Make sound the sick, and turn distress to joy."
Ibid.
If flowers have so much beauty in common eyes, what must they be in the eye of a poet, which gives new charms to every object on which it gazes ! A poet sees in a flower not only its form and colour, and the shadowing of its verdant foliage— his eye rests upon the dew-drop that trembles on the leaf ; a gleam of sunshine darts across, and gives it the sparkling brilliancy of a diamond. He sees the bee hovering around, buzzing its joyous anticipation of the honey he shall draw from its very heart ; and the delicate butterfly suspended as it were by magic from its silken petals. His imagination, too, brings around it a world of associations, adding beauty and interest to the object actu- ally before his eye. Thus flowers have been described in all their seasons, and in every variety of situation and cir- cumstance, budding forth in timid beauty in the early spring, glowing in the maturity of summer, lingering in the chilling breath of autumn, and some few as daring even the frosts of winter. They have been represented as sinking with drought, weighed down with rain, and fading in the noon- day sun ; as opening, fresh with dew, to the beauty of the morning, and closing with the day ; as enlarged and im- proved by the hand of art ; as dying, or growing rank and wild, under the influence of neglect.
How beautifully the poet says, in praying for the inspira- tion of poesy,
•<( 'twill bring me to the fair
Visions of all places : a bowery nook Will be elysium — an eternal book Whence I may copy many a lovely saying About the leaves and flowers ; about the playing Of nymphs in woods and fountains ; and the shade Keeping a silence round a sleeping maid ;
PREFACE. xxxvil
And many a verse from so strange influence, That we must ever wonder how and whence It came !"
KEATS.
The spring is, in particular, a subject delightful to the poet. He loves to celebrate the cheerful season when
" The palms put forth her gems, and every tree Now swaggers in her leafy gallantry."
HERRICK.
" As spring, attended by the laughing hours, After long storm is wont to reappear, When the mild zephyr, breathing through the bowers, Brings back its former beauty to the year, And goes enamelling the banks with flowers, Blue, white, and red, all eyes and hearts to cheer."
WIFFEN'S GARCILASSO.
Gawin Douglas gives an exquisite picture of May. April is described by a French poet in the colours of an English May ; the spring, of course, being somewhat earlier in the warmer climate of France :
" April — the hawthorn and the eglantine, Purple woodbine,
Streaked pink, and lily-cap, and rose, And thyme, and marjoram, are spreading Where thou art treading ; And their sweet eyes for thee unclose.
REMY BELLEAU *.
The dew on flowers, on the violet in particular, has fre- quently been compared to tears trembling in a blue eye •(•. A dew-drop has given life to some of the loveliest gems of poetry :
" See the dew-drops how they kiss Every little flower that is,
* See London Magazine, Vol. V. p. 334. t See Violet.
xxxvni PREFACE.
Hanging on their velvet heads Like a rope of crystal beads."
FAITHFUL SHEPHERDESS.
ff The air was cooling, and so very still,
That the sweet buds which with a modest pride Pull droopingly, in slanting curve aside, Their scantly-leaved and finely-tapering stems Had not yet lost those starry diadems Caught from the early sobbing of the morn."
KEATS.
" Dew-drops like diamonds hung on every tree, And sprinkled silvery lustre o'er the lea ; And all the verdurous herbage of the ground Was decked with pearls which cast a splendour round ; The flowers, the buds, and every plant that grew Sipp'd the fresh fragrance of the morning dew. In every plant the liquid nectar flowed, In every bud, and every flower that blowed ; Here roved the busy bees without control, Robbed the sweet bloom, and sucked its balmy soul."
GAWIN DOUGLAS, MODERNIZED BY FAWKES.
We seldom see a parterre of flowers, on a fine summer's day, in which the butterfly and the bee are not present,
" Feeding upon their pleasures bounteously."
The murmur of bees is a grateful sound — it tells of sunshine and sweet odours ; it is one of those gentler tones of nature's voice which have a kind and soothing influence on the spirits ; like the whisper of a gentle air among the leaves ; the sigh of the long grass, as it bends before the breeze ; or the murmur of a neighbouring runnel. It could not then be overlooked by the poet :
" Him to soft slumbers call The babbling brooks, the fall Of silver fountains, and the unstudied hymns Of cageless birds, iWhose throats Pour forth the sweetest notes ; Shrill through the crystal air the music swim& ;
PREFACE. xxxix
To which the humming hee •
Keeps ceaseless company,
Flying solicitous from flower to flower,
Tasting each sweet that dwells
Within their scented bells ;
Whilst the wind sways the forest, bower on bower,
That evermore, in drowsy murmurs deep,
Sings in the air, and aids descending sleep."
WIFFEN'S GARCILASSO.
£< From sapling trees, with lucid foliage crown'd, Gay lights and shadows twinkled on the ground : Up the tall stems luxuriant creepers run, To hang their silver blossoms in the sun ; Deep velvet verdure clad the turf beneath, Where trodden flowers their richest odours breathe ; O'er all the bees with murmuring music flew From bell to bell, to sip the honied dew."
MONTGOMERY.
The climate of this country is not, perhaps, the most favourable for the production of flowers ; yet we have a power of enjoying those we have, which inhabitants of warmer climates often have not. In the East, it is true, the country is adorned with the most magnificent flowers, springing up spontaneously and abundantly ; whole fields are brilliant with tulips, anemonies, and roses ; but the bright sun, which gives them life and beauty, forbids man to walk abroad during many hours in the day, from its in- sufferable heat. Persia is, perhaps, supereminently the country of flowers, of the rose in particular. Japan, too, has magnificent flowers ; which, to be able to enjoy, the people have a quantity of them within doors. The Japanese are passionately fond of flowers, and frequently name their women from them. In Constantinople they are very much neglected. Tournefort remarks, that the Turks take little care of their gardens in general, bestowing their attention almost entirely upon their melons and cucumbers.
xl PREFACE.
Wilson describes the desolate appearance even of a cottage garden entirely neglected :
•" O'er the green,
Once smooth before the porch, rank weeds are seen,
Choking the feebler flowers : with blossoms hoar,
And verdant leaves, the unpruned eglantine
In wanton beauty foldeth up the door.
And through the clustering roses that entwine
The lattice-window, neat and trim, before,
The setting sun's slant beams no longer shine.
The hive stands on the ivied tree,
But murmurs not one single bee.
Frail looks the osier seat, and gray,
None hath sate there for many a day ;
And the dial, hid in weeds and flowers,
Hath told, by none beheld, the solitary hours."
To an attentive observer of their habits, flowers may be made to answer the purposes of the clock, the calendar, and the barometer. Some persons have calculated, to a day, the time of the year when certain trees resume their foliage in a given situation ; the same calculations may be made as to the blowing of flowers, and the hour of the day is indi- cated by many. " Those who are but in a small degree acquainted with botany," says Thunberg, " need not be told that, by the opening and closing of flowers, one may frequently know with certainty, as from a watch, what hour of the day it is, as well as if the weather will be fine or rainy. Plants of this kind are common on the African hills. The Mor&a undulata never opens before nine in the morning ; and before sunset, at four in the afternoon, it closes again. The Ixia cinnamonea opens every evening at four, and exhales its agreeable odours during the whole night. The approach of rain is announced by various bulbous plants, such as the Lvias, Mortzas, Irises, and Galaxias ; the tender flowers of which do not open in the
PREFACE. xli
morning, if rain is to be expected soon ; and if a shower is to fall in the afternoon, they close some time before *."
" The Hottentots," says the same author, " do not seem to have any knowledge, neither do they take the least ac- comit of the course of nature. The only thing they re- mark is, that every year they see the bulbous plants push out of the ground, blossom, and decay ; and according to this almanack they reckon their own agesf."
Nor is it only from the bulbous plants that we take these warnings of weather, or learn the hour : the Marvel of Peru is called the Four-o'clock-flower, from its opening regu- larly at that time. Many of the species of Convolvulus and Campanula, also, have their stated hours of rest ; and a variety of other plants too numerous to mention. It has been observed of a species of broom, that it may with pro- priety be termed an American clock, because it grows there in every pasture, begins to display its yellow flowers every morning at eleven, is fully open by one, and closes again at two.
" Till morning dawn, and Lucifer withdraw His beamy chariot, let not the loud bell Call forth thy negroes from their rushy couch : And ere the sun with mid-day fervor glow, When every broom-bush opes her yellow flower, Let thy black labourers from their toil desist : Nor till the broom her every petal lock, Let the loud bell recall them to the hoe. But when the jalap I her bright tint displays, When the solanum fills her cup with dew, And crickets, snakes, and lizards 'gin their coil, Let them find shelter in their cane-thatched huts."
GRAINGER'S SUGAR-CANE, Book 4.
* Thunberg's Travels, Vol. I. p. 286. t Ibid. Vol. II. p. 197. J Marvel of Peru.
FLORA DOMESTICA,
ADONIS.
RANUNCULACE^. POLYANDRIA POLYGYNIA,
Italian adonio. — French, adonide ; rose rubi ; gouttes de sang £drops of blood]] ; aile de faisan ^pheasant's wing]] ; ceil de perdrix [partridge's eye]]. — Greek, eranthemon [spring-flower], — English, adonis-flower; bird's eye ; pheasant's eye ; flos-adonis. The autumnal adonis is also called red may thes, red morocco; to which Gerarde adds may- weed, and red camomile. " Our London women/' says he, " do call it rose- a-rubie."
THIS flower owes its classical name to Adonis, the fa- vourite of Venus: some say its existence also; maintaining that it sprung from his blood, when dying. It is likely that the name arose from confounding it with the anemone, which it resembles. There are, however, other flowers which lay claim to this illustrious origin ; the larkspur is one, but the claim is too weak to be generally allowed. Moschus has conferred this distinction on the rose. Others again, trace its pedigree to the tears which Venus shed upon her lover's body; and Gerarde would persuade us that these tears gave birth to the Venice-mallow : but the anemone has pretty generally established her descent from both parents. — See Anemone.
FLORA DOM.F.STICA.
The name of the beautiful huntsman, in his living ca- pacity, however, applies well enough; for the Adonis is handsome and ruddy, and an enemy to the corn ; but the flower is not so hardy as its godfather, and must be shel- tered from the frosts of winter.
The Autumnal, or Common Adonis, has usually a red flower ; but there is a variety of this species, of which the flowers are lemon-coloured. It is a native of most parts of the south of Europe; in Germany it grows wild among the corn ; as it does, according to Gerarde, in the west of England. It is very common in some parts of Kent, par- ticularly on the banks of the Medway, — a water-nymph, according to Spenser, famous for her flowers.
ee Then came the bride, the lovely Medway came,
Clad in a vesture of unknowen geare,
And uncouth fashion, yet her well became,
That seemed like silver sprinkled here and there
With glittering spangs that did like stars appear,
And waved upon, like water chamelot,
To hide the metal, which yet every where
Bewrayed itself, to let men plainly wot It was no mortal work, that seemed, and yet was not.
Her goodly locks adown her back did flow, Unto her waist, with flowers bescattered, The which ambrosial odours forth did throw To all about, and all her shoulders spread As a new spring : and likewise on her head A chapelet of sundry flowers she wore, From under which the dewy humour shed, Did trickle down her hair, like to the hore Congealed little drops which do the morn adore."
The Vernal Adonis [Fr. hellebore d Hippocrate] is a perennial ; and as it does not flower the first year, it might be more convenient to purchase it at a nursery when in a state to flower, than to raise it at home. It may, however, be treated in the same manner as the Autumnal Adonis. It is a native of Switzerland, Germany, &c. It bears a large
ADONIS. 3
yellow flower, which blows about the end of March, or the beginning of April.
The Apennine Adonis is very similar to the vernal, of which it is termed the sister; but it continues longer in flower than that species, which, true to the name it bears, comes and goes with the spring. The reader of poetry is aware that Adonis, after death, was supposed to spend his time alternately with Proserpine in the lower regions, and with Venus on earth.
" Go, beloved Adonis, go, Year by year thus to and fro, Only privileged demigod ! There was no such open road For Atrides ; nor the great Ajax, chief infuriate ; Not for Hector, noblest once Of his mother's twenty sons ; Nor Patroclus : nor the boy That return'd from taken Troy *."
There is also a shrub Adonis, a native of the Cape of Good Hope.
The Autumnal Adonis is an annual, and the seeds sown in spring will flower in October. If some of the seeds are sown in September they will blow early in June. As the flowers open sooner or later in proportion to their ex- posure to the sun, a little attention to their arrangement will insure a longer succession of them. The seeds should be sown two or three in a pot, half an inch deep. During the severity of the winter, the pots should be housed ; but in mild weather they should stand in the open air. In dry weather they should be occasionally, but sparingly, wa- tered, just enough to preserve them from drought.
* See the Translations from Theocritus, in Hunt's Foliage.
FLORA DOMESTICA.
AFRICAN LILY.
AGAPANTHUS.
HEMEROCALLIDE^:. HEXANDRIA MONOGYNIA.
The botanical name of this flower is from the Greek, and signifies a delightful flower.— French ; tuberose bleue ; Italian, amarillide tur- china.
THIS Lily is a native of the Cape of Good Hope : it is of a bright blue colour ; very showy and elegant. The flowers blow about the end of August, and will frequently preserve their beauty till the spring.
It is increased by offsets, which come out from the sides of the old plants, and may be taken off at the latter end of June ; at which time the plant is in its most dormant state. It should be turned out of the pot, and the earth carefully cleared away, that the fibres of the offsets may be the better distinguished: and these must be carefully sepa- rated from those of the old root. Where they adhere so closely as not to be otherwise parted, they must be cut off with a knife ; great care being taken not to wound or break the bulb, either of the offset or of the parent plant.
When these are parted, they should be planted, each in a separate pot filled with light kitchen-garden earth, and placed in a shady situation, where they may enjoy the morn- ing sun ; a little water should be given to them twice a week, if the weather be dry; but they must not have much, espe- cially at this season, when they are almost inactive ; for as the roots are fleshy and succulent, they are apt to rot with too much moisture. In about five weeks the offsets will have put out new roots ; they may then be removed to a more sunny situation, and may have a little more water; but still in moderation. In September they will put out their flower-stalks, and towards the end of the month the
ALMOND TREE. 5
flowers will begin to open ; when, unless the weather be very fine, they should be housed, that they may not be injured by too much wet, or by frost; but they must be allowed as much fresh air as possible. During the winter they may have a little water once a week in mild weather, but none in frost. This flower must be watered only at the roots.
ALMOND TREE.
AMYGDALA.
ROSACE.!;. ICOSANDRIA MONOGYNIA.
French, almandier ; Italian, mandorlo.
THE Almond-tree ! "the lofty Almond-tree a potted plant ! the Almond tree, to which Spenser, in an exquisite passage, likens the plume of Prince Arthur :
" Upon the top of all, his lofty crest, A bunch of hairs discolour'd diversly, With sprinkled pearl and gold full richly drcst, Did shake, and seem'd to dance for jollity. Like to an almond-tree ymounted high On top of green Selinis all alone, With blossoms brave bedecked daintily, Whose tender locks do tremble every one
At every little breath that under heaven is blown."
No, it is not this immortal Almond-tree that is to be moved at pleasure from the garden to a room or balcony ; but a Russian cousin, the Bobownik, Dikii Persik, or Cal- myzkii Orech [Calmuck almond] ; but called by the Cal- mucks themselves Charun Orak, a young Tartar of humble growth, though emulating his great relation in the elegance of his apparel. He is called the Dwarf Almond tree ; and is worthy to have derived his name from the transforma- tion of some dwarf in a fairy tale into a tree. In April the young shoots of this tree are covered with blossoms of a beautiful blush-colour; and the leaves are sometimes
6 FLORA DOMESTICA.
five inches long. It will bear the open air, and, when the weather is dry, should be watered every evening. The young suckers from the roots must be taken off every year, or they will starve the parent plant : they may be planted in February or October, and should be placed in the shade till they have taken root. The fruit of this shrub is about the size of a hazel-nut, and has the taste of the peach-kernel.
Plutarch mentions a great drinker of wine, who, by the use of bitter almonds, used to escape being intoxicated. The Italians, upon their favourite modern principle of contra-stimulants, suppose this very likely ; and so it may be ; but it need not be added, that to tamper in this manner with diseases seems very dangerous.
Thunberg tells us, that at the Cape, the wood of the Almond-tree is made into lasts, and heels for shoes.
The Egyptians purify the muddy water of the Nile by putting it into jars rubbed inside with a paste of bitter almonds.
ALOE.
ASPHODELE-iE. HEXANDRIA MONOGYNIA
THE derivation of this name is uncertain. Beginning with the syllable Al, it is, perhaps, of Arabian origin ; especially as the plant is much venerated in the East. In the Hebrew, a cognate language, it is called ahalah : some derive Aloes from the Greek als [the sea] ; others from the Latin, adolendo ; but this can only refer to the Aloe-wood, which is used in sacrifices for its fragrance. On the whole it is probable the name was first applied to the aloe-wood, and hence transferred to the common Aloes, on account of their bitterness. Its medicinal virtues were made known to us by Dioscorides, the physician of Cleopatra ; and it is
ALOE. 7
also mentioned by Plutarch. The name Aloe is retained by all the European nations.
From the specimens we are in the habit of seeing in this country, we should be inclined to think that the utility of the Aloe far surpassed its beauty, and to rank it, as a ve- getable, with the camel and the elephant in animal life. Like the larger animals, it is confined to hot, or compa- ratively uncivilised countries. Its appearance, which re- sembles a collection of huge leathern claws, armed with prickles, is very formidable ; and even the smaller species have a sort of monstrosity of size in their parts, though small as a whole. But notwithstanding the extraordinary utility of the Aloe, those who have seen it in its native country, and in full flower, describe it as scarcely less re- markable for elegance and beauty. The larger and more useful kinds appear to be also the most beautiful. Rous- seau uses the epithet beautiful, in speaking of the great American Aloe, or Agave.
" Nature seems to have treated the Africans and Asiatics as barbarians," says St. Pierre, in speaking of the Aloe, " in having given them these at once magnificent, yet monstrous vegetables ; and to have dealt with us as beings capable of sensibility and society. Oh, when shall I breathe the perfume of the honeysuckle ? — again repose myself upon a carpet of milk-weed, saffron, and blue-bells, the food of our lowing herds ? and once more hear Aurora welcomed with the songs of the labourer, blessed with freedom and content* ?"
The kind chiefly used in medicine is the Barbadoes Aloe, the preparations from which are eminent for the nauseous- ness of their bitter. " As bitter as aloes," is a proverbial phrase. It is a common practice with our fair country- women to avail themselves of this bitterness in the Aloe, nr o- r:-r^ e ,>: V v :!(-. «tft && |p -.:'* 'io -v.r;.- r" * St. Pierre's Voyage to the Isle of France.
8 FLORA DOMESTIC A.
when weaning their children ; applying it to the bosom to induce them to refuse it ; but this is surely a more objec- tionable deceit than that by which they are allured to swallow nauseous drugs.
" Cosi all' egro fanciul porgiamo aspersi Di soavi licor gli orli del vaso : Succhi amari, ingannato, intanto ei beve ; E dall' inganno suo vita riceve."
T.ASSO.
<( So we (if children young diseased we find") Anoint with sweets the vessel's foremost parts, To make them taste the potions sharp we give : They drink, deceived ; and so deceived, they live."
FAIRFAX'S Translation.
It seems strange that any thing but the most imperative necessity should induce a mother to use any means which can render her an object of disgust to her child.
The most remarkable of the Aloe tribe is the great Ame- rican Aloe, named by botanists Agave, which name is de- rived from the Greek, and signifies admirable, or glorious : called by the French aloe en arbre [tree aloe], and also pitte, The natural order in which it should be arranged is uncertain. Bernard Jussieu placed it with the Narcissi, and Anthony Jussieu with the Bromeliacca?. It is a native of all the southern parts of America. The stem generally rises upwards of twenty feet high, and branches out on every side towards the top, so as to form a kind of pyramid. The slender shoots are garnished with greenish yellow flowers, which come out in thick clusters at every joint, and continue long in beauty ; a succession of new flowers being produced for near three months in favourable seasons, if the plant is protected from the autumnal cold. The elegance of the flower, and the rarity of its appearance in our cold climate, render it an object of such general cu-
ALOE. 9
riosity, that the gardener who possesses the plant an- nounces it in the public papers, and builds a platform round it for the accommodation of the spectators. The popular opinions, that the aloe flowers but once in a cen- tury, and that its blooming is attended with a noise like the report of a cannon, are equally without foundation. Some other plants are said to blow with this explosion. Thun- berg says of the talipot-tree, that when it is on the point of bursting forth from its leafy summit, the sheath which en- velops the flower is very large, and when it bursts makes an explosion like the report of a cannon.
Miller suggests a curious and not improbable origin of this error with regard to the Aloe. " I suppose," says he, " the rise of this story might proceed from some persons saying, when one of these plants flowered, it made a great noise ; meaning thereby, that whenever one of them flow- ered in England, it was spread abroad as an uncommon thing, and occasioned a great noise among the neighbouring inhabitants ; most of whom usually repair to see it, as a thing that rarely happens, and as a great curiosity."" The fact is, that the time which this plant takes to come to per- fection varies with the climate. In hot countries, where they grow fast, and expand many leaves every season, they will flower in a few years; but in colder climates, where their growth is slow, they will be much longer in arriving at perfection. The leaves of the American Aloe are five or six feet long, from six to nine inches broad, and three or four thick*.
Millar mentions one of these plants in the garden of the King of Prussia, that was forty feet high ; another in the royal garden at Friedricksberg in Denmark, two-and-twenty feet high, which had nineteen branches, bearing four thou-
* Wood's Zoography, vol. iii.
10 FLORA DOMESTICA.
sand flowers; and a third in the botanic garden at Cam- bridge, which, at' sixty years of age, had never borne flowers. He specifies some others, remarkable for the num- ber of their flowers, but does not mention the age of any one at the time of flowering.
" With us," says Rousseau, " the term of its life is un- certain ; and after having flowered, it produces a number of offsets, and dies."
Brydone, speaking of the approach to the city of Agri- gentum, says, " The road on each side is bordered by a row of exceeding large American Aloes ; upwards of one- third of them being at present in full blow, and making the most beautiful appearance that can be imagined. The flower-stems of this noble plant are in general betwixt twenty and thirty feet high (some of them more), and are covered with flowers from top to bottom; which taper re- gularly, and form a beautiful kind of pyramid, the base or pedestal of which is the fine spreading leaves of the plant. As this is esteemed in northern countries one of the greatest curiosities of the vegetable tribe, we were happy in seeing it in so great perfection ; much greater, I think, than I had ever seen it before.
" With us, I think, it is vulgarly reckoned (though I be- lieve falsely) that they only flower once in a hundred years. Here I was informed, that, at the latest, they always blow the sixth year, but for the most part the fifth. As the whole substance of the plant is carried into the stem and the flowers, the leaves begin to decay as soon as the blow is completed, and a numerous offspring of young plants are produced round the root of the old one. These are slipped off, and formed into new plantations, either for hedges or for avenues to their country-houses *." Thunberg says
* BrydoneV Tour in Sicily and Malta, vol. ii. p. 5.
ALOE. 11
that this Aloe is very common at the Cape ; and, although not a native, but imported from the botanic gardens of Europe, blossoms finely every year*.
A kind of soap is prepared from the leaves, and the leaves themselves are used for scowering floors, pewter, &c.; their epidermis is serviceable to literature as a material for writing upon. The following extract from Wood's Zoo- graphy will give some idea of the general utility of this ex- traordinary plant : —
" The Mahometans respect the Aloe as a plant of a su- perior nature. In Egypt it may be said to bear some share in their religious ceremonies ; since whoever returns from a pilgrimage to Mecca hangs it over his street-door as a proof of his having performed that holy journey. The superstitious Egyptians believe that this plant hinders evil spirits and apparitions from entering the house ; and on this account, whoever .walks the streets in Cairo, will find it over the doors of both Christians and Jews."
Maximilian, in his Travels in Brazil, mentions a species of Agave which grew by the sea-side (Agave fcetida), of which he says — " Its smooth-edged stiff leaves, eight or ten feet long, form strong hedges ; and from the middle rises a thick stem thirty feet high, which bears at the top yellowish green flowers, and gives the landscape an original appear- ance. The pith of the stem^ called Pitta, serves the col- lectors of insects instead of cork •(•."
May not the French name Pitte be taken from this word Pitta?
Lavaysse, in his " Venezuela," says the inhabitants make ropes from the Jgavejwtida : —
" The leaves of the different specimens of Aloe, as well as the Agave, are highly serviceable to the natives of the
* Thunberg's Travels, p. 283. t Page 82.
12 FLORA DOMESTICA.
countries where they grow. The negroes in Senegal make excellent ropes of them, which are not liable to rot in water ; and of two kinds mentioned by Sir Hans Sloane, one is manufactured into fishing-lines, bow-strings, stock- ings, and hammocks ; while the other has leaves, which, like those of the wild pine and the banana, hold rain- water, and thus afford a valuable refreshment to travellers in hot climates. The poor in Mexico derive almost every necessary of life from a species of Aloe. Besides making excellent hedges for their fields, its trunk serves instead of beams for the roofs of their houses, and its leaves supply the place of tiles. From these they obtain paper, thread, needles, clothing, shoes, stockings, and cordage ; from the juice they make wine, honey, sugar, and vinegar."
Such of the Aloes as do not require a stove will bear the open air, in our climate, from the end of March to the end of September. During the winter they should be watered about once in a month ; in the summer, when the weather is dry, once in a week or ten days ; but when there is much rain, they should be sheltered from it, or they will be apt to rot. If the weather be mild, they may be placed where they may receive the fresh air in the day-time for a month after they are housed ; after that the windows should be closed. They should not be put into large pots, but should be re- moved into fresh earth every year, which should be done in July. As much of the earth should be shaken away as possible, the roots opened with the fingers, and such as are decayed taken off; but great care must be taken not to break or wound those which are young and fresh. Water them gently when newly planted, place them in the shade for three weeks, and if the weather is hot and dry, water them in a similar manner once or twice a week. Most of the species may at this time be increased by offsets, which should be planted in very small pots ; and if, in taking off
ALOE.
the suckefs, you find them very moist where they are broken from the mother-root, they should lie in a dry shady place for a week before they are planted. When planted, treat them like the old plants. Such kinds as do not afford plenty of offsets may generally be propagated by taking off some of the under leaves, laying them to dry for ten days or a fortnight, and planting them, putting that part of the leaf which adhered to the old plant about an inch or an inch and a half into the earth. This should be done in June.
There are few things, I believe, more venerable, more eloquently impressive in their antiquity, than an old tree. The ruins of an old and noble edifice, of which every shat- tered fragment, every gaping cranny, complains of the de- structive hand of time, is young and modern in our eyes, compared with that which still survives its touch, — the old ivy, that still, with every succeeding year, moves slowly on, knitting its creeping stalks into every crevice, and carrying- its broad leaves up to the very summit. What can be more venerable than the far- spreading roots of an old elm or oak tree, veining the earth with wood ! Cross but that little piece of wood, called the wilderness, leading from Hamp- stead towards North End, where the intermingled roots are visible at every step, casing the earth in impenetrable armour, and forming a natural pavement, apparently as old as time itself — can all the antiquities of Egypt command a greater reverence ?
The larger species of Aloe, from the immensity of its size, and the known slowness of its growth, must speak the same impressive language. Mr. Campbell has put it in a noble attitude for the occasion :
" Rocks sublime
To human art a sportive semblance bore, And yellow lichens colour'd all the clime Like moonlight battlements, and towers decay 'd by time.
14 FLORA DOMESTIC A.
But high in amphitheatre above, His arms the everlasting aloe threw."
GERTRUDE OF WYOMING.
The Abbe la Pluche gives an interesting account of the Uses of the Chinese Aloe, commonly called Wood-aloes, or Aloes-wood; from whence, as has been supposed, the name of aloe has been transferred to the common species.
" This Aloe," says he, " is as tall as the olive-tree, and of much the same shape : there are three sorts of wood contained under its bark ; the first is black, compact, and heavy ; the second swarthy, and as light as touchwood ; the third, which lies near the heart, diffuses a powerful fragrance. The first is known by the name of eagle-wood, and is a scarce commodity ; the second, calembouc-wood, which is transported into Europe, where it is highly esteemed as an excellent drug ; it burns like wax, and, when thrown into the fire, has an aromatic odour. The third, which is the heart, and called calambac, or tambac- wood, is a more valuable commodity in the Indies than gold itself. It is used for perfuming the clothes and the apart- ments of persons of distinction ; and is a specific medicine for persons affected with fainting-fits, or with the palsy *. The Indians, likewise, set their most costly jewels in this wood. The leaves of this tree are sometimes used instead of slates for roofing houses ; are manufactured into dishes and plates, and, when well dried, are fit to be brought to table. If stripped betimes of their nerves and fibres, they are used as hemp, and manufactured into a thread. Of the points, with which the branches abound, are made nails, darts, and awls. The Indians pierce holes in their ears
* The pieces of this wood are carefully preserved in pewter boxes, to prevent their drying ; when used, they are ground upon a marble with such liquids as are best suited for the purpose intended. — HARRIS'S Natural History of the Bible, p. 9.
ALOE. 15
with the last, when they propose to honour the devil with some peculiar testimonies of their devotion. If any orifice or aperture be made in this tree by cutting off any of its buds, a sweet vinous liquor effuses in abundance from the wound, which proves an agreeable liquor to drink when fresh, and in process of time becomes an excellent vinegar, The wood of the branches is very agreeable to the taste, and has something of the flavour of a candied citron. The roots themselves are of service, and are- frequently con- verted into ropes. To conclude, a whole family may sub- sist on, reside in, and be decently clothed by, one of these Aloes."
The common writing-paper in Cochin-China is made from the bark of this tree ; of which the botanical name is aquilaria, from aquila, an eagle, so named because it grows in lofty places ; and from its bitter taste, also termed Wood- aloes.
Chaucer notices both the fragrance and the bitterness of the Aloe-wood :
/ <c The woful teris that thei letin fal
As bittir werin, out of teris kinde, For paine, as is ligne aloes, or gal."
TROILUS AND CRESEIDE, book iv.
" My chambir is strowed with mirre and insence, With sote savoring aloes and sinnamone, Brething an aromatike redolence."
REMEDIE OF LOVE.
" Aloe che fragranza Araba spira :"
FRUGONI.
" Aloe that breathes Arabian fragrance."
The great antiquity of the use of Wood-aloe as a perfume is shown by the Bible : " All thy 'garments," says a passage in the Psalms, " smell of myrrh, and aloes, and cassia :" and Solomon, addressing the object of his love, says, " thy plants are an orchard of pomegranates, with pleasant fruits ;
16 FLORA DOMESTICA.
camphire, with spikenard ; spikenard and saffron ; calamus and cinnamon, with all trees of frankincense ; myrrh and aloes, with all the chief spices : a fountain of gardens, a well of living waters, and streams from Lebanon :" upon which, the object of his love, as if in an enthusiasm of de- light at his speaking so of the place she lives in, beautifully exclaims, " Awake, O north wind ; and come, thou south ; blow upon my garden, that the spices thereof may come out. Let my beloved come into his garden, and eat his pleasant fruits."
Moore describes the Aloes- wood burnt as a perfume in a Persian palace :
" Here the way leads o'er tesselated floors, Or mats of Cairo, through long corridors, Where, ranged in cassolets, and silver urns, Sweet wood of aloe or of sandal burns ; And spicy rods, such as illume at night The bowers of Tibet, send forth odorous light, Like Peri's wand, when pointing out the road For some pure spirit to its blest abode.1'
A little further on he speaks of it as used for the lattices of aviaries ; he says that the sandal-wood, and Aloes-wood, which the Arabs call Oud Comari, are brought in great quantities from Comorin :
" On one side, gleaming with a sudden grace Through water, brilliant as the crystal vase In which it undulates, small fishes shine, Like golden ingots from a fairy mine ; — While, on the other, latticed lightly in With odoriferous woods of Comorin, Each brilliant bird that wings the air is seen V
Latrobe describes a very beautiful Aloe growing at the Cape, with most brilliant flowers :
" Large Aloes were interspersed among the bushes, and with their broad leaves form a striking contrast to the many small-leaved evergreens which surround them. Some of
* Veiled Prophet of Khorassan.
ALOE. 17
them were in full bloom, towering above the thicket, and one more perfect than the rest was brought into the waggon. The flower consisted of seven branches, one in the centre, and six surrounding it at regular distances. The centre branch was a foot and a half long, the rest about thirteen inches, all thickly covered with a succession of long, bell- shaped flowers, each orange-coloured at the stem, and passing into bright vermilion towards the top. The bril- liant appearance of this huge flower, or mass of flowers, disposed like a chandelier, and mounted on a stem six feet in height, with a capital of massive leaves, spreading above three feet in diameter, is beyond conception grand *."
He mentions another, of smaller growth, extremely beau- tiful also :
" The waste produces some beautiful plants, among which I particularly noticed the Fahlblar, a species of Aloe, the leaves of which are round, of a pale blue colour, and spreading near the ground ; the stalk about a foot long, and the flowers, which are bell-shaped, and of a deep scarlet, hanging down in clusters •(•."
A lover of flowers will sympathize with this author in the regret he describes himself to have felt, in the course of preparation for building a new church : " By the grubbing up, and removing these stones, which may have lain there since the deluge, many flowers, much beautiful shrubbery, and a great quantity of Aloes were destroyed. I defended them as long as I could, but was obliged to submit to the necessity of using the stones. The ground was strewed with flowers and bulbs, shattered Aloe-leaves and beau- tiful plants, but I was assured for my comfort, that, after a short rest, the earth would bring forth abundantly, and the Aloes and Fahlblar again adorn the spot j."
* Latrobe's Visit to South Africa, p. 273. t Ibid. p. 64. : Ibid. p. 458.
c
18 FLORA DOMESTICA.
AMARANTH.
AMARANTHUS.
AMARANTHACEJE. MONCECIA PENTANDRIA.
Italian, amaranto^ fior veluto [velvet flower]. — French, amaranthe ; passe- velours [pass- vel vet] ; fleur d'amour [love-flower]. — English, amaranth ; flower-gentle ; velvet-flower. The botanical name is de- rived from the Greek,, and signifies unfading.
THE species of Amaranth most cultivated in English gardens are the Two-coloured Amaranth, which flowers late in the autumn, with purple and crimson flowers ; — the Three-coloured Amaranth*, with variegated flowers, which continue to blow from June to September ; " there is not," says Millar, " a handsomer plant than this in its full lustre;" — the PrinceVfeather Amaranth (amar. hypoclion- driachus)., which also varies in colour, and which flowers at the same time ; — the Spreading or Bloody Amaranth, with flowers of a red purple, blowing from June to September ;— the Pendulous Amaranth, or Love-lies-bleeding, (Fr. dis- cipline des religieuses-) the nun's whipping rope,) with flowers of a red purple, blowing in August and September ; — the Cock's comb, or Crested Amaranth [Celosia in pen- tandria monogynia], of which the flowers are red, purple, white, yellow, or variegated, flowering in July and August ; — and the Globe Amaranth [Gompkrena in pentandria digynia ; but, like Celosia^ still belonging to the same na- tural family of Amarantliacecc\ of which there are several varieties, white, purple, striped, &c. The purple resembles clover raised to an intense pitch of colour, and sprinkled with grains of gold. The flowers, gathered when full grown, and dried in the shade, will preserve their beauty for
* French, Jleur de jalousie, jealous-flower ; Italian, maraviglia di Spagna, the Spanish wonder ; papagallo, the parrot ; the Spanish and Portuguese also call it papagayo.
AMARANTH. 19
years, particularly if they are not exposed to the sun. A friend of the writer's possesses some Amaranths, both purple and yellow, which he has had by him for several years, enclosed with some locks of hair in a little marble urn. They look as vivid as if they were put in yesterday ; and it may be added, that they are particularly suited to their situation. They remind us of Milton's use of the Amaranth, when speaking of the multitude of angels as- sembled before the Deity :
— " to the ground
With solemn adoration down they cast Their crowns inwove with amaranth and gold ; Immortal amaranth, a flower which once In Paradise., fast by the tree of life, Began to bloom, but soon for man's offence To heaven removed, where first it grew, there grows And flowers aloft, shading the fount of life, And where the river of bliss through midst of heaven Rolls o'er Elysian flowers her amber stream ; With these that never fade, the spirits elect Bind their resplendent locks enwreathed with beams ; Now in loose garlands thick thrown off, the bright Pavement, that like a sea of jasper shone, Impurpled with celestial roses smiled."
The following occurs in Shelley's Rosalind and Helen :
" Whose sad inhabitants each year would come, With willing steps climbing that rugged height, And hang long locks of hair, and garlands bound With amaranth flowers, which, in the clime's despite, Filled the frore air with unaccustomed light. Such flowers as in the wintery memory bloom Of one friend left, adorned that frozen tomb."
Moore too speaks of them as being used for the hair, a purpose for which they are peculiarly well adapted : ec Amaranths such as crown the maids That wander through Zamara's shades *."
* " The people of the Batta country, in Sumatra, or Zamara, when not engaged in war, lead an idle inactive life, passing the day in play-
20 FLORA DOMESTIC A.
From a passage in Don Quixote one may suppose that Amaranths were sometimes worn by the Spanish ladies in the time of Cervantes ; but the chief value of such passages consists in showing us the probable taste of the author. It is where he speaks of a set of ladies and gentlemen who were amusing themselves by playing shepherds and shep- herdesses in the woods, and who had hung some green nets across the trees. And as he (Don Quixote) was going to pass forward and break through all (he took it for the work of enchanters) " unexpectedly from among some trees two most beautiful shepherdesses presented them- selves before him : at least they were clad like shep- herdesses, except that their waistcoats and petticoats were of fine brocade, their habits were of rich gold tabby, their hair, which for brightness might come in competition with the rays of the sun, hanging loose about their shoul- ders, and their heads crowned with garlands of green laurel and red flower-gentles interwoven.11 The delicate and sunny-coloured bay leaves of the south, and the red or purple Amaranth, interwoven, would make a beautiful mix- ture, especially as the Amaranth is deficient in leaves.
In Portugal, and other warm countries, the churches are, in winter, adorned with the Globe Amaranth. Cowley and Rapin, in their Latin poems on plants and gardens, make honourable mention of the Amaranth ; but the trans- lations of those poems are too unworthy of their originals to admit of quotation, and a friend who would have supplied me with better is on a distant journey.
The Cock^s comb Amaranth is a very showy and remark- able plant. The appellation was given it from the form of its crested head of flowers resembling the comb of a
ing on a kind of flute, crowned with garlands of flowers, among which the Globe Amaranth, a native of the country, mostly prevails."
AMARANTH. 21
cock. Sometimes the heads are divided like a plume of feathers. It is said that in Japan these crests or heads of flowers are often a foot in length and in breadth, and extremely beautiful. The colour of the scarlet varieties is highly brilliant.
The Amaranths are all annual, must be raised in a hot- bed, and may be had from a nursery when strong enough to bear removal, which, for the last three kinds, will not be earlier than the middle of June : the others may be placed abroad earlier. In dry weather they should be watered every evening. Such flowers as are intended to be pre- served should be cut before they run to seed ; and should be observed daily after they are blown, that they may be taken in full beauty.
The Amaranth is recommended, among other flowers, as
a food for bees :
" II timo e 1' amaranto Dei trapiantare ancora, e quell' altr' erbe Che danno a questa greggia amabil cibo."
L£ API DEL IIUCELLAI.
Thyme and the amaranth Also transplant, and all such other herbs As yield the winged flock a food they love.
One of the most popular species of the Amaranth is the Love-lies-bleeding. The origin of this name is not generally known ; unless we are to suppose it christened by the daughter of O'Connor, in her tender lamentations over the tomb of Connocht Moran :
" A hero's bride ! this desert bower,
It ill befits thy gentle breeding : And wherefore dost thou love this flower
To call — my love-lies-bleeding? This purple flower my tears have nursed ;
A hero's blood supplied its bloom : I love it, for it was the first
That grew on Connocht- Moran 's tomb."
%% FLORA DOMESTIC A.
The Amaranths are chiefly natives of America, and very few are supposed to grow naturally in Europe ; yet Sir W. Jones speaks of them as if growing wild in Wales :
" Fair Tivy, how sweet are thy waves gently flowing,,
Thy wild oaken woods, and green eglantine bowers, Thy banks with the blush-rose and amaranth glowing While friendship and mirth claim their labourless hours !"
Among other flowers which derive their origin from un- happy lovers, Spenser mentions the Amaranth. I do not find to whom he means to refer here :
" And all about grew every sort of flower, To which sad lovers were transformed of yore ; Fresh hyacinthus, Phoebus' paramour, Foolish Narciss, that likes the watery shore : Sad Amaranthus, made a flower but late, Sad Amaranthus, in whose purple gore Me seems I see Amintas' wretched fate, To whom sweet poet's verse hath given endless date." FAIRY QUEEN, b. iii. c. 6.
Again, near the conclusion of the gnat, he says — " Red Amaranthus, luckless paramour."
ANDROMEDA.
ERICINE^E. DECANDRIA MONOGYNIA.
Marsh cistus ; wild rosemary ; poley-mountain ; moon- wort ; marsh holy-rose.
THIS plant was named by Linnaeus, from the daughter of Cepheus and Cassiope, who was exposed at the water- side, and rescued from the sea-monster by Perseus. Thus a name in botany, especially in the works of this great and illustrious naturalist, is often made to tell two stories — that of its classical prototype and of its own nature.
The Marsh Andromeda, which is a native of America and many parts of Europe, is also a plant of our own ;
ANEMONE. 23
growing wild in most of our northern counties, as well as in the Lowlands of Scotland. It is an elegant little shrub, with pink flowers, which begin to open toward the end of May.
This is the species of Andromeda the most desirable for home-cultivation ; but there are many others, of which two or three are evergreens ; as the willow-leaved and the box- leaved Andromedas. They will all bear the open air. In dry summer weather they will require water every evening ; if the weather be very hot, they may be watered in the morning also.
ANEMONE.
RANUNCULACE-flE. POLYANDRIA POLYGYNIA.
Anemone, from the Greek, anemos, wind : some say because the flower opens only when the wind blows ; others, because it grows in situations much exposed to the wind. — French, Anemone^ 1'herbe au vent [wind herb] ; Italian, Anemolo ; Fiore Stella.
To do justice to every species of the Anemone, it would be necessary to write a volume upon that subject alone ; but it will suffice for the present purpose to speak of the kinds most desirable.
The Anemones are natives of the East, from whence their roots were originally brought; but they have been so much improved by culture, as to take a high rank among the ornaments of our gardens in the spring. As they do not blow the first year, it will be more convenient to purchase the plants from a nursery than to rear them at home : on another account also, it will be better ; for they vary so much, that it is impossible to secure the handsomest kinds by the seed ; and, when in flower, they may be selected according to the taste of the purchaser. They should be sheltered from frost and heavy rains :
24? FLORA DOMESTICA.
light showers will refresh them, and in dry weather they should be watered every evening, but very gently. When the roots are once obtained, they may be increased by parting.
The Narrow-leaved Garden Anemone grows wild in the Levant. In the islands of the Archipelago the borders of the fields are covered with it in almost every variety of colour ; but these are single ; culture has made them double.
Of the double varieties of this species there are nearly two hundred. To be a fine one, a double Anemone should have a strong upright stem, about nine inches high; the flower should be from two to three inches in diameter : the outer petals should be firm, horizontal, unless they turn up a little at the end, and the smaller petals within these should lie gracefully one over the other. The plain colours should be brilliant, the variegated clear and distinct.
The Broad-leaved Garden Anemone is found wild with single flowers, in Germany, Italy, and Provence ; the single varieties are sometimes called S tar- Anemones : they are very numerous, as are also the double varieties, of which the most remarkable are the great double Anemone of Constantinople, or Spanish marygold, the great double Orange-tawney, the double Anemone of Cyprus, and the double Persian Anemone.
There is a species called the Wood-Anemone, which grows in the woods and hedges in most parts of Europe. In March, April, and May, many of our woods are almost covered with these flowers, which expand in clear weather, and look towards the sun ; but in the evening, and in wet weather, close and droop their heads. _ When the Wood- Anemone becomes double, it is cultivated by the gardeners ; and were the same pains taken with this as with the foreign Anemones, it would probably become valuable.
Anemone roots may be planted towards the end of
ANEMONE. 25
September, and again a month later ; some plant a third set about Christmas. The first planted will begin to flower early in April, and continue for three or four weeks ; the others will follow in succession. As soon as the leaves decay, which of those first planted will be in June, the roots should be taken up, the decayed parts and the earth cleared away ; and, having been dried in the shade, they should be put in some secure place, where they may be perfectly dry, and particularly where mice, &c. cannot find access to them. This opportunity may be taken to part the roots for increase ; and provided each part has a good eye or bud, it will grow and flower; but they will not flower so strong if parted small. The roots will be weak- ened, if suffered to remain long in the earth after the leaves decay. They will keep out of the earth for two, or even three years, and grow when planted. The single, or Poppy Anemone, will, in mild seasons, blow throughout the winter.
Earth proper for the Anemone may be procured from a nursery ; the roots may be planted in pots five inches wide ; the earth an inch and a half deep over the top of the roots, and the eye of the root upwards. They must be kept moderately moist, shaded from the noon-day sun, and ex- posed to that of the morning. In the winter they should be placed under shelter, but should have plenty of fresh air, when not frosty.
The Abbe la Pluche relates a curious anecdote of M . Bachelier, a Parisian florist, who, having imported some very beautiful species of the Anemone from the East Indies to Paris, kept them to himself in so miserly a manner, that for ten successive years he never would give to any friend or relation whomsoever the least fibre of a double Anemone, or the root of one single one. A counsellor of the parlia- ment, vexed to see one man hoard up for himself a benefit
26 FLORA DOMESTICA.
which nature intended to be common to all, paid him a visit at his country-house, and, in walking round the garden, when he came to a bed of his Anemones, which were at that time in seed, artfully let his robe fall upon them : by which device, he swept off a considerable number of the little grains, which stuck fast to it. His servant, whom he had purposely instructed, dexterously wrapped them up in a moment, without exciting any attention. The counsellor a short time after communicated to his friends the success of his project ; and by their participation of his innocent theft, the flower became generally known.
Tournefort, who also relates this story, says that this ingenious flower-stealer took with him three or four of his friends to visit M. Bachelier, and that when they drew near to the place where the Anemones were placed, they began to amuse him, and engage his attention by relating different tales and anecdotes, to prevent his observing what was passing around him.
Rapin, in his poem on gardens, ascribes the birth of the Anemone to the jealousy of Flora ; who fearing that the incomparable beauty of a Grecian nymph would win from her the love of her husband Zephyr, transformed her into this flower. But to this tale he adds an account better authorised, of the Anemone having sprung from the blood of Adonis and the tears of Venus shed over his body; and it is but common justice to Flora to observe that this is the generally received opinion of the origin of the Ane- mone. Cowley gives it this parentage, in his poem on plants. Ovid describes Venus lamenting over the bleeding body of her lover, whose memory and her own grief she resolves to perpetuate by changing his blood to a flower ; but less poetically than some others : he substitutes nectar for the tears of Venus ; not even hinting that the said nectar was the tears of the goddess.
ANEMONE. 27
" But be thy blood a flower. Had Proserpine The power to change a nymph to mint ? — Is mine Inferior ? or will any envy me For such a change ? Thus having utter'd, she Pour'd nectar on it, of a fragrant smell; Sprinkled therewith, the blood began to swell, Like shining bubbles that from drops ascend ; And ere an hour was fully at an end, From thence a flower, alike in colour, rose, Such as those trees produce, whose fruits enclose Within the limber rind their purple grains ; And yet the beauty but awhile remains ; For those light-hanging leaves, infirmly placed, The winds, that blow on all things, quickly blast."
SANDYS' OVID, book x.
" By this, the boy that by her side lay killed, Was melted like a vapour from her sight ; And in his blood, that on the ground lay spilled, A purple flower sprung up chequered with white, Resembling well his pale cheeks, and the blood Which in round drops upon their whiteness stood."
SHAKSPEARE'S VENUS AND ADONIS.
The Spanish poet, Garcilasso, attributes the red colour only of the Anemone to the blood of Adonis :
" His sunbeam-tinted tresses drooped unbound, Sweeping the earth with negligence uncouth ; The white anemonies that near him blew Felt his red blood, and red for ever grew."
WIFFIN'S Translation, p. 273.
The Greek poet, Bion, in his epitaph on Adonis, makes the Anemone the offspring of the goddess's tears.
Mr. Hor. Smith, in his poem of Amarynthus, supports the first reason for naming this flower the wind-flower — that it never opens but when the wind blows :
" And then I gathered rushes, and began To weave a garland for you, intertwined With violets, hepaticas, primroses, And coy Anemone, that ne'er uncloses Her lips until they 're blown on by the wind."
AMARYNTHUS, p. 46.
28 FLORA DOMESTIC A.
It seems more usual, as well as in character, for the presence of the sun to unclose the lips of the Anemone, which commonly close when he withdraws ; but when he shines clear,
" Then thickly strewn in woodland bowers, Anemones their stars unfold."
Sir W. Jones has translated an ode from the Turkish of Mesihi, in which the author celebrates several of the more sweet or splendid flowers :
" See ! yon anemones their leaves unfold,
With rubies flaming, and with living gold."
" The sweetness of the bower has made the air so fragrant, that the dew, before it falls, is changed into rose water."
" The dew-drops, sweeten'd by the musky gale. Are changed to essence ere they reach the dale."
The only poetical allusion, which I have met with, to the fragility of the Anemone, is in the poems of Sir W. Jones :
" Youth, like a thin anemone, displays His silken leaf, and in a morn decays."
Pulsatilla is a name common to several of the Anemones ; one is specifically distinguished by that name ; it is a hand- some purple flower, blowing in April, a native of most parts of Europe, growing upon chalky downs. It grows wild in several of our counties, but not near to the metropolis. It is frequently called Pasque-flower, or Easter-flower ; by some Flaw-flower, and Hill-tulip. There is a variety with double, and another with white flowers.
ANTHOLYZA.
I&IDEJE. TRIANDfilA MONOGYNIA.
The name of this flower is from two Greek words, signifying a flower and madness. Why they are so applied I do not know, unless it has been used in hydrophobia.
THE Antholyzas being chiefly from warmer countries, will not bear the open air in this :- they are usually kept
ANTHOLYZA. 29
within doors from October, until they have ceased flower- ing ; when, if it is intended to save the seeds, they are set abroad to perfect them ; but the better mode of raising them in private gardens is to part the offsets from the bulbs, which furnish them in plenty. Those raised from seed do not flower till the third year. The best time to plant the roots is in August ; they should be housed at the end of September, and will continue growing all the winter. In April, or early in May, the flowers appear: when these and the leaves have decayed, the bulbs should be taken up, dried in the shade, and cleaned, and pre- served as directed for other bulbs. In August they may be replanted : the offsets may be planted three or four in a pot, the first year ; the second, they should be separated to flower. In winter, they should be gently watered once or twice a week ; in the spring, they will require it oftener, perhaps every evening, but sparingly.
The principal species are the Plaited-leaved Antholyza, with red flowers ; the Scarlet-flowered, which is very beau- tiful; the Broad-leaved, which has also scarlet flowers; and the Red-flowered [or Antholyza Meriana, Fr. la me- rianelle, so named by Dr. Trew, from Sybilla Merian, the celebrated female Dutch botanist ; but placed by some in the genus Gladiolus; and by others in Watsonia\^ of which the flowers are of a copper-red colour outside, and of a deeper red within. They are all handsome plants; having, in addition to the beauty of their flowers, large dark green leaves, some of them a foot in length : they are natives of the Cape of Good Hope.
SO FLORA DOMESTICA.
ANTHYLLIS.
LEGUMINOS^E. DIADELPHIA BECANDRIA.
Kidney- vetch ; ladies-finger; Jupiter's beard ; silver bush. Lamb- toe. The name Anthyllis is derived from the Greek, and signifies a downy-flower; from the down on its leaves. — French, barbe de Ju- piter [Jupiter's beard] . — Italian, barba di Giove, signifying the same.
THE Silvery Anthyllis, which is the only species necessary to mention here, is so called from the whiteness of its leaves : it is a handsome shrub, bearing yellow flowers which blow in June. This Anthyllis is a native of France, Spain, Italy, Portugal, and the East. It must be sheltered in winter ; but the more air it enjoys in mild weather, the better it will thrive : in dry weather it should be gently watered every evening ; in winter once a week will suffice.
Cuttings planted in any of the summer months in a pot of light earth, and placed in the shade, will take root, and may then be treated in every respect as the older plants.
Linnaeus observes of the common Anthyllis, that the colour of the flowers varies with that of the soil : in Poland, where the soil is a red calcareous clay, the flowers are red : in Gothland, where the soil is white, the flowers are the same : here they are yellow.
"The yellow lamb toe I have often got,
Sweet creeping o'er the banks in sunny time."
CLARE, vol. ii. p. 198.
ANTIRRHINUM.
PERSONEJE. DIDYNAMIA ANGIOSPERMIA.
Toad-flax ; snap-dragon ; from the resemblance of its flowers to an open mouth. — French, mufle de veau. — Italian, antirrino; Bocca di Leone.
THESE flowers are many of them large and handsome, but some persons consider them coarse; which, indeed,
ANTIRRHINUM. 31
is the case with many of the most splendid flowers, as the hollyhock and the sun-flower. They are, however, very magnificent, particularly the great snap-dragon, or calve\s snout ; called by the French, le mujller commune mouron violet [violet pimpernel] ; ceil de chat [cat's eye] ; gueulc de lion ; &c. The flowers of this species are red, white, purple, yellow, or a combination of any two of these colours. They are single or double. It is a native of the south of Europe, and blows in June and July. The Russians express an oil from the seeds, little inferior to the oil of olives. This species is increased by cuttings planted in the summer in a dry soil : and this and the following are the kinds most commonly cultivated in gardens :
2. The three-leaved ; Valentia and Sicily ; purple
or yellow ; July and August.
3. The branching ; Spain ; yellow ; May and June.
4. The violet- flowered ; France and Italy.
5. The many-stalked ; Sicily and the Levant ;
yellow ; July.
6. The hairy ; Spain ; yellow ; Juty-
7. The common yellow ; Europe ; June to August.
8. The brown-leaved ; Siberia, Piedmont, &c. ;
yellow.
9. The purple, or Vesuvian ; July to September.
10. The Montpelier ; sweet-scented ; blue; June to the end of
autumn.
11. The dark-flowered ; Gibraltar ; flowers most of the summer.
12. The Alpine ; very elegant ; a fine violet-colour,
with a rich gold-colour in the middle ; many
growing close together ; all the summer.
2, 3, 4, 5, 6, are annual plants, and must be increased by seeds, which may be sown in the spring ; — or in autumn, sheltering them in the winter ; with the exception of the last, which should be sown in March, and will require no shelter. 3, 4, in five-inch pots : 6, three or four seeds in an eight-inch pot.
7, 8, 9, 10, are perennial plants ; they may be sown as
32 FLORA DOMESTICA.
the last mentioned, in spring, or in autumn ; they will require shelter from hard frost. The two last may also be increased by parting the roots in autumn. The com- mon-yellow is an indigenous plant, and if in a tolerably dry soil, will bear frost itself : a little straw over the roots will suffice for 8. In Worcestershire the common yellow toadflax is called butter-and-eggs. It has leaves somewhat similar to flax, and on that account is named toad-flax, flax-weed, and wild flax. Its juice, mixed with milk, is used as a poison for flies; and water distilled from it is said to remove inflammation in the eyes.
11, 12, may be increased by cuttings, planted in the summer in a light unmanured soil. They must be removed into the house in October, and brought out again about the end of April, or early in May.
AKBOR-VIT^E.
THUJA.
CONIFERS. MON(ECIA ADELPHIA.
The origin of this name, which signifies the tree of life, does not appear, though it seems to have reference to the tree mentioned in the book of Genesis. — French, 1'arbre de vie ; cedre Americain [Ame- rican cedar]. — Italian, albero di vita ; tuja.
THE Arbor-vitae is a native of Siberia and Canada, where it is very plentiful. Being the strongest wood in Canada, it is there used for enclosures and palisades, for boats, and the floors of rooms. It is reckoned one of the best woods for the use of the lime-kiln ; and besoms made of its branches are carried over Canada by the Indians for sale. When fresh, they have a very agreeable scent, which is perceptible in houses swept with them. The leaves have medicinal properties. In England the wood is used for bowls, boxes, cups, &c.
This tree is sometimes called the white cedar. It be-
33
gins to flower about May. A young plant may be pro- cured from a nursery as soon as its education is so far advanced that it may be introduced to the world with pro- priety. It will thrive well in a pot for many years : but the best species for this purpose is the Chinese Arbor- vitae^ which does not grow too large for a pot. It will bear our climate in all its seasons, only requiring to be watered occasionally in dry weather.
Thunberg speaks in very warm terms of admiration of a species of Thuja which he found common in Japan. " One of the handsomest and largest trees," says he, " was the superb and incomparable Thuja dolabrata, which was planted every where by the road side. I consider this tree as the handsomest of all the fir-leaved trees, on account of its height, its straight trunk, and its leaves, which are con- stantly green on the upper, and of a silver-white hue on the under part. As I did not find it in flower here, nor any of its cones with ripe seed in them, I therefore used my endeavours to procure, through the interpreters and others of my friends, a few seeds and growing plants of it, which I afterwards sent to Holland by the first convey ance*."
According to this author's account, the tree he speaks of appears worthy to have inherited its ancestor's station in paradise. That ancestor, however, was a very different tree from the one which now bears the title. The original tree of life is described by Milton :
In this pleasant soil
His far more pleasant garden God ordained ; Out of the fertile ground he caused to grow All trees of noblest kind for sight, smell, taste ; And all amid them stood the tree of life, High eminent, blooming ambrosial fruit
* Thunberg's Travels, vol. iii. p. 160.
34 FLORA DOMESTICA.
Of vegetable gold ; and next to life,
Our death, the tree of knowledge, grew fast by,
Knowledge of good bought dear by knowing ill."
Spenser differs in his description of the tree of life : let the reader judge between them. Certainly the fruit now called the forbidden fruit best agrees with Milton's description. It is about the size of a cocoa-nut, shape of an orange, and the colour of a lemon. Spenser makes the fruit an apple :
f ' There grew a goodly tree him fair beside, Loaden with fruit, and apples rosy red, As they in pure vermilion had been dide, Whereof great vertues over all were read ; For happy life for all which thereon fed, And life eke everlasting did befall : Great God it planted in that blessed sted With his almighty hand, and did it call
The Tree of Life, the crime of our first father's fall.
" In all the world like was not to be found,
Save in that soil, where all good things did grow, And freely sprong out of the grateful ground, As uncorrupted nature did them sow, Till that dread dragon all did overthrow. Another like fair tree eke grew thereby, Whereof whoso did eat, eftsoons did know Both good and ill : O mournful memory !
That tree through one man's fault hath done us all to die.
" From that first tree forth flowed, as from a well, A trickling stream of balm, most sovereign And dainty dear, which on the ground still fell, And overflowed all the fertile plain, As it had dewed been with timely rain : Life and long health that gracious ointment gave, And deadly wounds could heal, and rear again The senseless corse appointed for the grave."
FAIRY QUEEN, b. i. c. 2
ARBUTUS; 35
ARBUTUS.
ERICINK^E. DECANDKIA MONOGYN1A.
Strawberry-tree. — French, le fraisier en arbre, 1'arbre a fraises, both similar to the common English name : the fruit is called arbouse, ar- boise, or arboust. — Italian, arbuto, albatro, albaro, corbezzolo, from the fruit called corbezzola. By Pliny the fruit is called unedo ; be- cause it is so bitter that one only can be eaten at a time.
THIS is called the strawberry-tree, from the resem- blance of its fruit to a strawberry. Although it attains a considerable size, it is frequently grown in pots, and will bear transplanting very well. For this operation, April is the most favourable time ; the cultivator taking care to preserve the earth about the roots, and to shade them from the mid-day sun, when newly planted.
As the leaves of the Arbutus remain all the winter, and in spring are pushed off by the shooting of new ones, the tree is always clothed. In June the young leaves are ex- tremely beautiful ; in October and November it is one of the most ornamental trees we have; the blossoms of the present, and the ripe fruit of the former year, both adorn- ing it at the same time. There is an Arbutus now in the garden (in October) before my window, more lovely than I can find language to express. When other trees are losing their beauty, this is in its fullest perfection ; and realises the exuberant fiction of the poets, — bearing at once flowers and fruit :
" Co' fiori eterni eterno il frutto dura E mentre spunta Fun, Taltro matura.
' ' Nel tronco istesso, e tra 1'istessa foglia Sovra il nascente fico invecchia il fico : Pendono a un ramo, un con dorata spoglia, L'altro con verde, il nuovo e'l porno antico. Lussureggiante serpe alto, e germoglia La torta vite, ov' fe piu 1'orto aprico ;
D 2
36 FLORA DOMESTICA.
Qui Tuva ha in fiori acerba, e qui <Vor 1'ave E di piropo, e gia di nettar grave."
TASSO, canto xvi. stanza 10 and 11.
" There is continual spring, and harvest there Continual, both meeting at one time ; For both the boughs do laughing blossoms bear, And with fresh colours deck the wanton prime, And eke at once the heavy trees they climb, Which seem to labour under their fruit's load : The whiles the joyous birds make their pastime Amongst the shady leaves,, their sweet abode, And their true loves without suspicion tell abroad."
SPENSER'S FAERIE QUEENE.
" Great Spring, before,
Greened all the year : and fruits and blossoms blushed In social sweetness on the self-same bough."
THOMSON'S SPRING.
" the leafy arbute spreads
A snow of blossoms, and on every bough Its vermeil fruitage glitters to the sun."
ELTON.
This tree is a native of Greece, Palestine, and many other parts of Asia ; of Ireland, and of many parts of the south of Europe. In Spain and Italy the country-people eat the fruit, which is said to have been a common article of food in the early ages. Virgil recommends the young twigs for goats in winter :
" Jubeo frondentia capris
Arbuta sufficere."
It was used in basket-work :
" Arbuteae crates, et mystica vannus lacchi."
Arbutus and oak formed the bier of the young Pallas., the son of Evander :
" Baud segnes alii crates et molle pheretrum Arbuteis texunt virgis et vimine querno, Extructosque toros obtentu frondis inumbrant."
VIRGIL, JENEis, lib. xi.
ARBUTUS. 37
" Others, with forward zeal, weave hurdles, and a pliant bier of arbute rods, and oaken twigs, and with a covering of boughs shade the funeral bed high-raised." — DAVIDSON'S TRANSLATION.
Horace, too, speaks of it, and celebrates its shade :
" Nunc viridi membra sub arbuto Stratus."
It is mentioned by Ovid in the tenth book of the Meta- morphoses :
" Pomoque onerata rubenti
Arbutus :" " And the arbutus heavy with its ruby fruit."
And again, in the first book, where he speaks of it as affording food to man in the golden age.
Millar, after giving some of these quotations, adds, " I hope we shall no more have the classical ear wounded by pronouncing the second syllable of Arbutus long, instead of the first." This little ebullition of impatience, natural enough to a person who knew the right pronunciation, would have pleased his friend Dr. Johnson, who speaks of him somewhere as " Millar, the great gardener."
Some species of the Arbutus, from being mere shrubs, are better adapted for the present purpose than the beautiful one called the Common Strawberry-tree, which is the best known in our gardens ; as the Painted-leaved, the Dwarf, and the Acadian Arbutus. These trees mostly like a moist soil, but the Acadian prefers a wet one : it is a native of swampy land, and if grown in a pot should be kept very wet; the earth, also, should be covered with moss, the better to retain the moisture. The other spe- cies should be watered every evening when the weather is dry, but not so liberally. When the frosts are severe, it will be more secure to shelter them ; for though they will bear our winters when in the open ground, they are
38 FLORA DOMESTICA.
somewhat less hardy in pots. In mild seasons, a little straw over the earth will be a protection sufficient.
The berries of the Thyme-leaved Arbutus, which is a native of North America, are carried to market in Phila- delphia, and sold for tarts, &c. Great quantities of them are preserved, and sent to the West Indies and to Europe. The London pastry-cooks frequently use these instead of cranberries, to which they are very similar ; but they are inferior to cranberries of our own growth.
In Tuscany, many years ago, a man gave out that he had discovered a mode of making wine from the Arbutus. His wine was very good ; but, upon his leaving the country, his wine-casks were found to contain a quantity of crushed grapes.
Upon the whole, the Arbutus, with its strawberry-like fruit, its waxen-tinted blossoms hanging in clusters, their vine-coloured stems, its leaves resembling the bay, and the handsome and luxuriant growth of its branches, is one of the most elegant pieces of underwood we possess : and when we have reason to believe that Horace was fond of lying under its shade, it completes its charms with the beauty of classical association.
ARUM.
CALLA ^ETHIOPICA.
AROIDEjE. GYNANDRIA POLYANDRIA.
THE ^Ethiopian species of this flower, commonly called the horn-flower, is the only one deserving of a place in the garden. Many Arums of the botanists are very useful as medicine, food, &c. : the leaves of the esculent Arum serve the inhabitants of the South- Sea islands for plates and dishes, and in some parts of Brazil, this is cultivated
ARUM. 39
for the sake of its edible roots, which are called Manga- ranitos ; but they are very little ornamental ; and the few which are handsome have so powerful and disagreeable a scent as deservedly to banish them from most of our gardens.
This species, however, is exquisitely beautiful, and not only inoffensive in odour, but even agreeable. The leaves are large and glossy. It has a large white flower, folded with a careless elegance into the shape of a cup or bell, with a bright golden rod (called the spadix) in the centre. Placed by the side of the dark red peony, the effect is truly splendid: the contrast makes both doubly magni- ficent. A heathen might have supposed these fine flowers created on purpose to grace the bosom of the stately Juno. By the side of the rose, too, or the large double tulip, or some of the finer kinds of marygold, it has a noble appearance ; and no flower is more deserving of care in the cultivation. In summer, the Arum should be allowed a liberal draught of water every evening; but, being a succulent plant, should be watered only at the roots. It flowers in May, and may stand abroad until the end of October : it should then be housed, and, during the winter, should be watered but once a week. It retains its leaves all the year : new ones displacing the old, as they decay. In August the root should be taken out of the earth, when there will probably be a number of off-sets upon it : these must be taken off, and planted in separate pots. The mother plant must then be carefully re-set in fresh earth, and, as well as the young roots, be placed in the shade until they have fixed themselves. In winter, although housed, it should be allowed plenty of fresh air in mild weather, and towards the end of April may be gra- dually accustomed to the open air.
Thunberg says that the Calla Ethiopica " grows even in
40 FLORA DOMESTICA.
ditches about the gardens near the Cape." " The porcu- pine," says he, " whose usual food is the root of that beau- tiful plant the Calla Ethiopica, will frequently deign to put up with cabbages and other vegetables, by which means he sometimes commits great depredations in the gardens *."
In Latrobe's Visit to South Africa, this delicate yet magnificent plant is mentioned as bearing the name of Pig- leaf (Farhblar), probably from the circumstance of its being eaten by the porcupine. One might almost wish to be a Hottentot, to be surrounded by the exquisitely beautiful plants the Cape so abundantly affords : Were it, indeed, only to preserve the Arum flowers, which the porcupine so mercilessly tears up, to devour the roots.
" Hardly a spot exists," says Latrobe, speaking of this African garden, " upon which some curious and beautiful plant does not rear its head in its proper season ; and, in the midst of this brown desert, we see the magnificent chan- delier, or red star-flower, measuring from four or five inches to a foot and a half, in the spread of its rays, growing luxu- riantly among stones and sand^f*."
This chandelier (which is the Brunsvigia multiflord)^ he describes in a former part of the work :
" We noticed here a gigantic species of plant, from its singular form, very properly called the chandelier. The specimen I obtained had twenty shoots proceeding from its centre, in a direction nearly horizontal, each a foot long, with a beautiful scarlet flower at its point. Its root is a bulb ; a smaller species is common all over the waste J."
But we are wandering in the wastes of Africa, when we should be attending to our own green hedges.
The true Arums are similar plants, which, in a wild and
* Thunberg's Travels, vol. i. pp. 128, 283. t Latrobe's South Africa, p. S74-.
J
ASPHODEL. 41
humble state, are well known to children under the ap- pellation of lords and ladies. Their natural stateliness gets them a fine name, in spite of their situation *.
Clare has some pretty lines, describing the pleasant recol- lections excited in his mind by the sight of these flowers.
ASPHODEL.
ASPHODELUS.
ASPHODELE^E. HEXANDRIA MONOGYNIA.
King's-spear. — French, asphodele. — Italian, asfodelo ; asfodillo.
THE yellow Asphodel •(* is a native of Sicily, flowering in May and June : the white species J, a native of the south of Europe, flowers in June. The Onion-leaved Asphodel is a native of France, Spain, and the island of Crete : it flowers from June to August. The two last bear a starry flower, streaked with purple.
They are tolerably hardy, the white least so ; but they will all bear the open air, except in severe frosts, from which they require some protection. In dry summer- weather they should be watered every evening ; in winter, once a week will suffice. The last-mentioned kind is an annual, and decays toward the end of October. It should be sown in the autumn : one seed in a pot. The first two species, as they do not flower the first year, will be better raised in a nursery : the first, when once obtained, may be increased by parting the roots, which should be done
* They are also called Wake Robin; cuckow pint; ramp. In French, le gouet commun; bonnet de grand pretre [high-priest's mitre] ; herbe a pretre ; cheval bayard [bay horse] ; pain de lievre [hares' bread] .
*h In French, la verge de Jacob [Jacob's staff]. Italian, scettro di re.
^ In French, hache royale, baton royal, both signifying the royal sceptre. — In Italian, cibo regio [royal food] ; porrazzo.
4£ FLORA DOMEST1CA.
after the flower decays. They should be planted about two inches deep in the earth.
Rapin, in his poem on gardens, speaks of the Asphodel as an article of food :
" And rising Asphodel forsakes her bed, On whose sweet root our rustic fathers fed."
GARDINER'S TRANSLATION.
It is mentioned by Milton as forming part of the nuptial couch of Adam and Eve in Paradise :
" flowers were the couch,
Pansies, and violets, and asphodel,
And hyacinth, earth's freshest, softest lap."
It was formerly the custom to plant Asphodel and mallow around the tombs of the deceased. St. Pierre, after dwelling with some earnestness on the propriety of such customs, quotes the following inscription, engraven on an ancient tomb :
. <e Au-dehors je suis entoure de mauve et d'asphodele, et au-dedans je ne suis qu'un cadavre."
The fine flowers of the Asphodel produce grains, which, according to the belief of the ancients, afforded nourish- ment to the dead. Homer tells us, that having crossed the Styx, the shades passed over a long plain of Aspho- del*. It is singular that this plant should flourish so abundantly both in Eden and in Tartarus. The latter might have been supposed too warm a climate. A poet of the present day informs us, upon grave authority, that the spirits of the martyrs lodged in the crops of green birds have their dwelling
" In Eden's radiant fields of asphodel."
Orpheus, in Pope's Ode on St. Cecilia's day, conjures the infernal deities —
* See St. Pierre's Harmonies de la Nature.
ASTER. 43
" By the streams that ever flow, By the fragrant winds that blow
O'er the Elysian flowers ; By those happy souls who dwell In yellow meads of asphodel.
Or amaranthine bowers."
Pope, according to a passage in Spence's Anecdotes, where he speaks of it with a disrespect hardly becoming a poet, seems to have thought it one of our commonest field-flowers.
Dr. Hunt, speaking of Lemnos, says,
66 The pastures were profusely covered with anemonies of the most vivid and various hues ; and the sides of the hills were white with the large towering Asphodel, which the islanders look upon as an omen of a fruitful year *."
ASTER.
CORYMBIFERE. SYNGENESIA POLYGAMIA SUFERFLUA.
Starwort, so named from its starry shape. — French, astere. — Italian, astero.
THE varieties of the Aster are infinite ; and being very showy, of almost every colour, and the colours remarkably vivid, they make a brilliant figure in our gardens in the autumn. The most general favourite is the Chinese, or China Aster, which has larger and handsomer flowers than any of the others. There are many varieties of this species ; white, blue, purple, and red ; single and double of each; and another variety, variegated with blue and white.
The French call the China Aster la Heine Marguerite, which has been rendered, in English, the Queen Mar- garet : may they not rather mean to call it the Queen
* Dr. Hunt's Journal, Walpole's Travels in the East.
44 FLORA DOMESTICA.
Daisy — marguerite being their name for the daisy, which this flower much resembles in form, though it is of a much larger size, and of more brilliant colours ?
The Amellus, or Italian Starwort*, has a large blue and yellow flower. The leaves and stalks being rough and bitter, are not eaten by cattle ; and thus remaining in the pastures after the grass has been eaten away, it makes a fine show when in full nWer. This is supposed to be the Amellus of Virgil :
" The Attic star, so named in Grecian use, But call'd amellus by the Mantuan muse."
GARDINER'S TRANSLATION OF RAPIN.
" Est etiam flos in pratis, cui nomen amello Fecere agricolae ; facilis quaerentibus herba ; Namque uno ingentem tollit de cespite silvam, Aureus ipse ; sed in foliis, quae plurima circum Funduntur, violse sublucet purpura nigrse. Ssepe DeAm nexis ornatee torquibus arse. Asper in ore sapor : tonsis in vallibus ilium Pastores, et curva legunt prope flumina melhe. Hujus odorato radices incoque baccho ; Pabulaque in foribus plenis appone canistris."
VIRGIL, GEORGIC 4.
" We also have a flower in the meadows which the country-people call amellus. The herb is very easy to be found ; for the root, which consists of a great bunch of fibres, sends forth a vast number of stalks. The flower itself is of a golden colour, surrounded with a great num- ber of leaves, which are purple, like violets. The altars of the gods are often adorned with wreaths of these flowers. It has a bitterish taste. The shepherds gather it in the open valleys, and near the winding stream of the river Mella. Boil the roots of this herb in the best flavored wine ; and place baskets full of them before the door of the hive." — MARTYN'S TRANSLATION, p. 390.
The China Aster is an annual plant. It should be sown in March or April, and kept in a tolerably warm room
* Called in France 1'ceil de Christ [Christ's eye] ; in Italy, amello or astern affico di fior turchino.
AlTCtJBA JAPANICA. 45
until it has risen about three inches above the earth ; and should then be gradually accustomed to the open air. The seed may either be sown singly, or many together, and re- moved into separate pots when they have grown about three inches : in the latter case, they must be placed in the shade until they have taken new root, and be gently watered every evening. According to their situation, China Asters will require water every evening, or second evening, in dry summer weather, after they are rooted ; but it is necessary to give particular attention to this when they are newly planted. They will flower in August.
Most of the Asters have perennial roots and annual stalks, and may be increased by parting the roots, which should be done soon after the plant has done flowering. The Italian Star wort should not be removed oftener than every third year. The earth should be kept tolerably moist for all of them, and the taller kinds should be sup- ported with sticks.
The African species must be raised in a hot-bed, and require protection in winter.
AUCUBA JAPANICA.
RHAMNE.S? TETRANDRIA MONOGYNIA-
French, aucube ; Italian, aucuba ; English, gold-plant. THIS tree, the leaves of which are singularly dabbled with spots, is very commonly grown in pots, as an orna- ment for balconies, windows, &c. and seems to have been long a favourite ; probably, in some measure, from being of a hardy constitution, always green, and requiring little care — for it is by no means so handsome as many which are less generally regarded. It will bear the open air all the year round : the earth should be kept tolerably moist. Some call it American Laurel.
46 FLORA DOMESTICA.
Thunberg, in his Travels in Japan, says, " I found here a tree which is called Aukuba, and another called Nandina, both which were supposed to bring good fortune to the house." He observes that almost every house in Japan has a small yard behind it, decorated with a little mount, a few trees, shrubs, and flower-pots, and that the Aucuba and Azalea are almost always seen there *.
The Aucuba is comparatively a stranger in this country ; it was not introduced till the year 1783.
AURICULA.
PRIMULA AURICULA.
PRIMULACE7E. PENTANDRIA MONOGYNIA.
Mountain Cowslip, French Cowslip, and Oricolo ; but all these names have been superseded by Auricula, by which name it is best known in this country. The old botanical name was auricula ursi [bear's ear], from the shape of the leaves. — French, oreille d'ours. — Italian, orecchio d'orso.
THE Auricula is a native of the mountains of Switzerland, Austria, Styria, Carniola, Savoy, and Piedmont. It flowers in April and May. It is astonishing how greatly it may be improved by cultivation. It has been affirmed that Henry Stow, of Lexden, near Colchester, a noted cultivator of these flowers, had one plant with no less than one hun- dred and thirty-three blossoms upon one stem-f-.
The varieties are innumerable ; and they are known by the name of every colour, and combination of colours. Some are named from the persons who first raised them ; others by more fanciful appellations, as the Matron, the Alderman, the Fair Virgin, the Mercury, &c.
A fine Auricula should have a strong upright stem, of
* Thunberg's Travels, Vol. III. p. 111.
t Morant's Colchester (to which Millar refers), page 92.
AURICULA. 47
such a height that the flowers may be above the foliage of the plant. The foot-stalks should also be strong, and proportioned in length to the size and number of the flowers, which should not be less than seven. The tube, eye, and border should be well-proportioned ; that is, the diameter of the tube one-sixth, and that of the eye (in- cluding the tube) one-half the diameter of the whole flower. The circumference of the border should be a perfect circle ; the anthers should be large, and fill the tube; and the tube should terminate rather above the eye, which should be very white, smooth, round, and distinct from the ground-colour. The ground-colour should be bold, rich, and regular, whether in a circle, or in bright patches : it should be distinct at the eye, and only broken at the outer part into the edging. The dark grounds are usually covered with a white powder, which seems necessary to guard the flower from the scorching heat of the sun.
The poet, in the following lines, represents the splendid peacock as jealous of the Auricula ; of the beauty of her eye, doubtless, which he is fearful will eclipse the brilliancy of all his :
" See how the peacock stalks yon beds beside, Where rayed in sparkling dust, and velvet pride, Like brilliant stars arranged in splendid row, The proud auriculas their lustre show : The jealous bird now shows his swelling breast, His many-coloured neck, and lofty crest ; Then all at once his dazzling tail displays, On whose broad circles thousand rainbows blaze."
KLEIST'S SPRING.
Perhaps there' is no flower more tenderly cherished by the cultivators than the Auricula : they wait upon and watch over it like a mother over her infant.
Auriculas, enrich'd
With shining meal o'er all their velvet leaves."
THOMSON.
38 FLORA DOMESTICA.
One Auriculist (for the science deserves a separate ap- pellation) has devoted a little volume to its culture. An aspirant in this science is apt, however, to be startled on learning that the object of his adoration has a singular propensity for meat, and that a good part of its bloom is actually owing, like an alderman's, to this consumption of flesh. Juicy pieces of meat are placed about the root, so that it may in some measure be said to live on blood. This undoubtedly lessens its charms in some eyes. Its florid aspect somehow becomes unnatural ; and the " shining meal," with which Thomson says it is " enriched," being no longer associated with vegetation, makes it look like a baker covered with flour, and just come out from a dinner in his hot oven.
The Auricula does not flower the first year; but as it is sometimes desirable to continue the handsome kinds, it may be occasionally agreeable to sow the seeds at home : directions are therefore given for that purpose. The seeds may be sown at any time before Christmas, but the best time is in August. They may at first be sown within an inch of each other, not more than a quarter of an inch deep. They should stand in a moderately warm room, and be kept tolerably moist, by sprinkling the earth with a hard clothes-brush dipped in water, warmed by standing in the sun. At the end of four or five weeks, when the plants are all come up, they must be gradually accustomed to the air. As soon as any of the plants show six leaves, transplant them into other pots, about two inches asunder ; and, when grown so as to touch each other, transplant them again separately, into small pots, where they may remain to blow; and place them where they may enjoy the morning sun. Towards the middle of March they should be placed where they may receive the early, but be screened from the noon-day sun. Exposure to a whole
AURICULA. 49
day's sun at this time will destroy them ; but, if the wea- ther be mild, fresh air may be admitted to them. About the end of April they should be gradually accustomed to the open air ; but care must be taken not to do this too abruptly, and to place them out on a mild day,
' ' When dews, heaven's secret milk, in unseen showers, First feed the early childhood of the year."
DAVENANT.
Special care must be taken to screen them from easterly winds. Earth, properly prepared for Auriculas, may be obtained from a nursery; and this is considered of some importance. What further directions are necessary will equally apply to those flowers raised at home, and to such as are only adopted children.
Preserve the plants from too much wet in winter, but let them have as much air as possible. To screen them from rain, it is best to keep them under cover. In Fe- bruary, when the weather is mild, take out of the pots as much of the earth as you can without disturbing the roots, and fill them up with fresh earth, which will greatly strengthen the plants: also take off such leaves as are decayed.
Auriculas should, in dry weather, be very gently wa- tered three times in a week, carefully observing that no water fall upon the flowers ; which, by washing off their farina, would greatly deface their beauty, and hasten their decay.
The best situation for Auriculas, when in bloom, is where the air may surround them, but roofed over head at such a distance as not to oppress the plants. Placed in an eastern balcony, shaded by a viranda, and by a few shrubs on the southern side, they will be well lodged. When the flowers have lost their beauty, they must be entirely exposed, to perfect their seeds, which will ripen
E
•50 FLORA BOMESTICA.
in June. When the seeds are ripe, the seed-vessel will turn brown, and open. When they are perfectly dry, gather them, and lay them in an open paper exposed to the sun. To prevent their growing mouldy, they must remain in the pods till the season for sowing them.
Soon after they are past flowering, Auriculas should be taken out of the earth, such fibres as have grown very long should be shortened, and the lower part of the main root, if too long or decayed, cut off. If the lower leaves be faded or withered, strip them off in a down- ward direction : take off the offsets, and plant them in pots. Have ready a pot, three-parts filled with the pre- pared earth, highest in the middle ; there place the old plant, with its fibres regularly distributed all round : then fill the pot up with the same earth% and lay a little clean coarse sand on the surface, round the stem of the plant. The pot should be gently shaken, to settle the earth about the root. It should be planted within half an inch of the lowest leaves ; for, as the most valuable fibres shoot from that part, they will so be encouraged to strike root sooner.
When the offsets have formed one or more fibres of an inch or two in length, they may be parted from the mother- plant with the fingers, and planted as directed for young seedlings, several in a pot, until they are large enough to be transplanted separately.
In May, that is, as soon as this planting and trans- planting is finished, the plants, old and young, should be placed in a shady, airy situation ; by no means where the water from other plants can drip on them ; and there remain till September, or, if the weather be mild, till October, when they must be sheltered from rain, snow, and frost, but must still be allowed air. They may be placed near a window, which should be open in mild weather, and closed when frosty.
AURICULA.
Should there be offsets in April, or earlier, they may be taken off, and planted, without waiting till the old plants are removed. The following spring they will pro- duce flowers, though but weakly. When past flowering, remove them into larger pots ; and the second year they will flower in perfection. When the old plants are trans- planted, they should, if requisite, be removed into larger pots.
It must be either the Auricula or the Polyanthus de- scribed by the poet in the following passage :
" Oft have I brought thee flowers, on their stalks set Like vestal primroses, but dark velvet Edges them round, and they have golden pits."
KEATS'S ENDYMION.
•
The Auricula is to be found in the highest perfection in the gardens of the manufacturing class, who bestow much time and attention upon this and a few other flowers, as the tulip and pink. A fine stage of these plants is scarcely ever to be seen in the gardens of the nobility and gentry, who depend upon the exertions of hired servants, and cannot therefore compete in these nicer operations of gar- dening with those who tend their flowers themselves, and watch over their progress with paternal solicitude.
The Auricula is not usually remarkable for fragrance, but in the following lines it is celebrated for that also :
" In comes the auricula ; arrayed she comes In splendor, and in liveliest beauty blooms : Scarce can the crystal lustre of her eye With her rich garments' glossy satin vie : Around her bed the sweet perfumes arise, And clouds of unseen incense mount the skies."
I. V. T. *
* From Time's Telescope for 1822, p. 189.
FLORA DOMESTIC A.
AZALEA.
RHODORACE^E. TENTANDRIA MONOGYNIA.
Azalea is derived from the Greek, and signifies dry.
MILLAR says the Azalea is so named because it grows in a dry soil ; but this must be a strange oversight — for in the next page he tells us that it grows naturally in a moist soil, in North America, and that unless it has a moist soil it will not thrive.
The Azalea is a beautiful flowering shrub. The naked- flowered Azalea, in its native country, grows fourteen or fifteen feet high : here it is never more than half that height. * Of this species, the flowers appear before the leaves: they are red, or white and red, and in great abundance. This shrub is common in the woods of New Jersey, and is called May-flower, Wild Honeysuckle, and Upright Honeysuckle. We call it American Honeysuckle.
The White-flowered Azalea is a lower shrub than the former : the flowers are sweet-scented. This also is an American. The Pontic Azalea has yellow flowers. The Indian Azalea has a profusion of flowers, of a beautiful bright red.
" The Azalea Indica" says Thunberg, speaking of Japan, " stood in almost every yard and plat near the houses, in its best attire, ineffably resplendent with flowers of different colours *."
The Azaleas should be sheltered from severe frost, and the earth be kept moist. They flower from May to July, and are too handsome to be dispensed with, but from ab- solute want of room.
* Thunberg's Travels, vol. iii. p. 213.
BALM. 53
BALM.
MELISSA.
LABIATE. DIDYNAMIA GYMNOSI'EIIMIA.
From the fondness of bees for this plant, it is named melissa [a bee], melissophyllum [bee-leaf], from the Greek; and apiastrum, of a like signification, from the Latin. From its strong scent of lemons, Gesner has called it citrago. — French, le melisse des jardins [garden balm] ; herbe de citron [lemon herb] ; citronade, citronelle, both from the odour ; poncirade ; piment des mouches a, miel [bees' spice]. — Italian, melissa; cedronella; cedrancella; citraggine; melacitola. — In the Brescian territory, sitornela.
IT is seldom that this darling of the bees is admitted into the flower-garden, yet it is very pretty when in flower ; particularly that which is called the Great-flowered Balm, which has large purple flowers. Many a useless plant is admitted into the flower-garden with not half the beauty of this, which would deserve a place there for its scent alone. It was formerly considered as an efficacious remedy in hypochondria, but it is not so highly esteemed by the physicians of the present day. It proves, at least, an inno- cent substitute for foreign tea, which many persons find injurious to them; and many think its aromatic flavour very agreeable. Much of the prejudice against our native tea-plants has arisen from the tea being made of the fresh herbs, and by far too strong. If the Chinese tea were used as lavishly, it would be still more disagreeable to the taste than our native teas.
On account of its being so great a favourite with the bees, it was one of the herbs directed by the ancients to be rubbed on the hive, to render it agreeable to the swarm :
" Intorno del bel culto e chiuso campo Lieta fiorisca 1'odorata persa, El 1'appio verde, e 1' umile serpillo, Che con mille radici attorte e crespe
54- FLORA DOMESTICA.
Sen va carpon vestando il terren d'ef ba, E la melissa ch' odor sempre esala ; La mammola, 1'origano, ed il timo, Che natura creo per fare il raele."
L£ API DELRUCELLAI.
" O'er all the lawny field, lovely, shut in, Let the glad violet smile with its sweet breath ; And parsley green ; and humble creeping-thyme, Which, with a thousand roots, curling and crisp, Goes decking the green earth with drapery ; And balm that never ceases uttering sweets ; And hearts-ease, and wild marjoram, and thyme, Which nature made on purpose to make honey."
" Quand' escon 1'api dei rinchiusi alberghi, E tu le vedi poi per 1'aere puro Natando in schiera andare verso le stelle, Come una nube che si sparga al vento ; Conterapla ben perch' elle cercan sempre Posarsi al fresco sopra un verde elce, Ovver presso a un muscoso e chiaro fonte. E pero sparga quivi il buon sapore De la trita melissa, o 1'erba vile De la cerinta ; e con un ferro in mano Percuoti il cavo rame, o forte suona II cembal risonante di Cfbelle. Questo subito allor vedrai posarsi Nei luoghi medicati, e poi riporsi Second il lor costume entr' a le celle."
LE API DEL RUCELLAI.
' ( When the bees issue from their nestling homes, And you behold them through the clear blue ether, Swimming tow'rd heaven like a wind-sprinkled cloud, Be on the watch ; for then it is they go To feel the open air on a green oak, Or near a mossy and fresh-bubbling fountain ; There follow them, and put the genial flavour Of the bruised balm, or cerinth, and strike up The hollow brass or tremble- touching cymbal, And you will see them suddenly come down Upon the season'd place, and so re-enter After their wonted fashion, in their cells/'
BALM. 55
Virgil, in one of his pastorals, which was indeed the original of the poem of llucellai, mentions green casia, wild thyme, and savory, instead of the violet, parsley, and wild thyme. By casia, some have supposed the poet in- tended rosemary ; but in another passage he distinguishes these two plants : and as he uses the epithet ' green,1 which the ancient poets almost invariably apply to parsley, it is probable Rucellai may have considered this as the plant described by Virgil. The frequent changes in the names of plants have occasioned much doubt and difficulty in ascertaining exactly the plants intended by old authors. Vaccinium has been translated by different writers, the privet, the hyacinth, the violet, &e.
Evelyn tells us that " this noble plant yields an in- comparable wine ;" and that " sprigs, fresh gathered, put into wine in the heat of summer, give it a marvellous quickness."
There is a plant called Bastard Balm, or Balm-leaved Archangel ; in French, Le Melissot, or Melissa de Pu- naissc [Bug-balm] ; of which the botanical name, Melittis, is similar in its etymology to Melissa. This, like the true Balm, yields a great deal of honey ; it is described as having an unpleasant smell when fresh, but becoming delightfully fragrant when dried. It has large white and purple flowers, which are odoriferous when they first open. This plant is very handsome, and is a common inhabitant of the flower- garden.
Both these plants may be increased by parting the roots, which may be divided into pieces, with five or six buds to each, and planted in separate pots : this should be done in October, When intended for ornament, the roots should not be disturbed oftener than every third year. The earth should be loamy, and they should be placed in an eastern aspect, where they will thrive and produce {lowers in
56 FLORA DOMESTICA.
abundance. The Melissa will flower in June or July ; the Melittis, a month earlier. They may have a little water in dry weather, and stand abroad throughout the year. In autumn cut off the decayed stalks ; new ones will grow in the spring.
BALSAM.
1MPATIENS.
BALSAME^. SYNGENESIA MONOGAMIA.
Latin, impatiens. — Italian, balsamina; maraviglia di Francia; [the wonder of France]. — In Florence, begl 'uornini ; bell* uomo [fine man], — French, balsamine, or belsamine. The Yellow Balsam is also called noli-me-tangere [touch me not] ; quick-in-hand and wild mercury. — French, la balsamine des bois [Balsam of the woods] ; la merveille ; Therbe Sainte Catharine ; ne me touchez pas. — Italian, erba impaziente ; balsamina gialla [Yellow Balsam].
SOME of the names given to this plant refer to the violence with which the ripe seeds dart from the seed- vessel when touched.
In the day-time the leaves of this plant are expanded, but at night are pendent ; contrary to the habit of plants in general, which are more apt to droop during the heat of the day. This plant grows in England and many other parts of Europe, and in Canada : it is the only species of Impatiens which grows wild in Europe.
The Garden Balsam, which, as its name implies, is the most commonly cultivated in our gardens, is a native of the East and West Indies, China, and Japan. The Japanese use the juice prepared with alum to dye their nails red. This beautiful flower has been much enlarged, and numerous varieties have been produced, by culture. Mr. Martyn, in his edition of Millar's Dictionary, speaks of having seen one, " the stem of which was seven inches in circumference, and all the parts large in proportion ;
BALSAM. 57
branched from top to bottom, loaded with its party- coloured flowers, and thus forming a most beautiful bush.1''
There are white, purple, and red ; striped and varie- gated, single and double, of each. Millar mentions two remarkable varieties : — the Immortal Eagle, a beautiful plant with an abundance of large double scarlet and white, or purple and white flowers ; — and the Cockspur, of which the flowers are single, but as large as those of the former species ; with red and white stripes. This is apt to grow to a considerable size before it flowers ; so that in bad seasons it will bear but few blossoms.
In Ceylon and Cochin-China, there is a species of Bal- sam, from the leaves of which the inhabitants of Cochin- China make a decoction to wash and scent their hair.
The flowers of the Balsam will be handsomer if the plant be raised in a hot-bed : in May, if the weather be • mild, it may be gradually accustomed to the open air. It must be watered every evening, but gently ; and being a succulent plant, great care must be taken not to let water drip on it, nor to sprinkle it on the leaves or flowers. It loves the shade, and will thrive the better if shaded from the mid-day sun by the intervention of some light shrub, as the' Persian lilac, &c. The Balsam is a general fa- vourite for the number and beauty of the flowers, their sweetness, and the uprightness and transparency of its stem :
" Balsam, with its shaft of amber/'
says the poet, and the propriety of the expression has been questioned ; but the introduction of a Balsam in the sunshine not only fully justified its propriety, but excited surprise in those who had questioned it, at their own want of observation.
58 FLORA DOMESTIC A.
BASIL.
OCYMUM.
LABIATE. DIDYNAMIA GYMNOSPERMIA.
Basil is from a Greek word, signifying royal. It is generally called sweet basil. — French, basilic; la plante royale — Italian, basilico; ozzimo. — Ocymum is from a Greek word signifying swift, because the seed when sown comes up very quickly.
BASILS are either herbs, or undershrubs, generally of a sweet and powerful scent : they are chiefly natives of the East Indies, and in this climate require protection from frost. They are raised in a hot-bed, but should have as much air as possible in mild weather. They may stand abroad from May to the end of September, or of October, according as the weather is more or less mild at this season. They should be kept moderately moist.
Many of the Basils will not live in this country, unless in a hot-house, but there are many that will, and among those are some of the handsomest and sweetest kinds ; as the American Basil, with a flesh-coloured flower, remark- able for its agreeable scent ; the Monk's Basil, a small annual plant, with a white and purple flower, — a mysterious fo- reigner, whose country is unknown to us ; and Sweet Basil, which has spikes of white flowers, five or six inches in length, and a strong scent of cloves : of this species there is a variety smelling of citron, and another of which the flowers are purple.
In the East this plant is used both in cookery and me- dicine, and the seeds are considered efficacious against the poison of serpents.
The Basil, called by the Hindoos holy or sacred herb, is so highly venerated by them, that they have given one of its names to a sacred grove of their Parnassus, on the banks of the Yamuna.
BASIL. 59
In Persia (where it is called rayhan), it is generally found in churchyards :
" the Basil-tuft that waves
Its fragrant blossom over graves."
It is probably the custom to use it in Italy also to adorn tombs and graves, and this may have been Boccaccio's reason for selecting it to shade the melancholy treasure of Isabella. The exquisite story which he has told us has lately become familiar to English readers, in the poems of Mr. Barry Cornwall and Mr. Keats. The former does not venture, like Boccaccio, to describe Isabella as che- rishing the head of her lover, but makes her bury the heart in a pot of Basil ; first so enwrapping and embalming it as to preserve it from decay. Mr. Keats is more true to his Italian original, and not only describes her as bury- ing the head, but makes the head itself serve to enrich the soil, and beautify the tree ; nay, even to become a part
of it:
" And she forgot the stars, the moon, and sun. And she forgot the blue above the trees, And she forgot the dells where waters run, And she forgot the chilly autumn breeze : She had no knowledge when the day was done, And the new morn she saw not, — but in peace Hung over her sweet basil evermore, And moisten'd it with tears unto the core.
" And so she ever fed it with thin tears, Whence thick and green and beautiful it grew, So that it smelt more balmy than its peers Of basil-tufts in Florence ; for it drew Nurture besides, and life from human fears, From the fast mouldering head there shut from view ; So that the jewel safely casketed Came forth, and in perfumed leafits spread."
This young poet now lies in an Italian grave, which is said to be adorned with a variety of flowers. Among them Sweet Basil should not be forgotten.
And here we are naturally led to the Bay-tree.
60 FLORA DOMESTICA.
BAY.
LAURUS NOBILIS.
LAUlltNE^i. ENNEANDRIA MONOGYNIA.
Greek, Daphne. — Italian, alloro ; laurc. — French, laurier.
THIS Bay, by way of distinction, called the Sweet Bay, well justifies the epithet : the exquisite fragrance of the Bay-leaf, especially when crushed, is known to every one ; even in our climate, where it ranks but as a shrub, and doubtless, in its native soil, where it grows to a height of twenty or thirty feet, the perfume would be still finer.
How many grand and delightful images does the very name of this tree awaken in our minds ! The warrior thinks of the victorious general returning in -triumph to his coun- try, amid the shouts of an assembled populace ; the prince, of imperial Cassar; the poet and the man of taste, see Petrarch crowned in the Capitol. Women, who are en- thusiastic admirers of genius in any shape, think of all these by turns, and almost wonder how Daphne could have had the heart to run so fast from that most godlike of all heathen gods, Apollo.
It is said, that turning a deaf ear to the eloquent plead- ings of the enamoured god, she fled, to escape his con- tinued importunities : he pursued, and Daphne, fearful of being caught, entreated the assistance of the gods, who changed her into a laurel.
" The laurel, meed of mighty conquerors, And poets sage."
Apollo crowned his head with its leaves, and commanded that the tree should be ever after held sacred to his divinity. Thus it is the true inheritance of the poet ; but when be- stowed upon the conqueror, is only to be considered as an acknowledgment that he deserves immortality from Apollo's children.
BAY. 61
Spenser, indignant at the slight shown to his illustrious father, speaks in a vindictive strain of the fair Daphne :
" Proud Daphne, scorning Phoebus' lovely fire,
On the Thessalian shore from him did flee ; For which the gods, in their revengeful ire, Did her transform into a laurel-tree."
SPENSER'S SONNETS.
Garcilasso tells the story rather in pity than in anger :
" Strange icy throes the arms of Daphne bind,
Which shoot and spread, and lengthen into boughs ;
And into green leaves metamorphosed shows
The head, whose locks wooed by' the summer wind,
Made the fine gold seem dim ; the rigorous rind
Clothes the soft members that still pant ; her feet,
Snowy as swift, in earth fast rooted meet,
By thousand tortuous fibres intertwined.
The author of an injury so great
With virtue of his tears this laurel fed,
Which flourished thus; perpetual greenness keeping ;
Oh fatal growth ! oh miserable estate !
That from his weeping each fresh day should spread
The very cause and reason of his weeping."
WIFFEN'S GARCILASSO, p. 33.
This noble tree has often been confounded with the common laurel, which is of quite a different genus, bearing the botanical name of prunus laurocerasus. The Bay was formerly called Laurel, and the fruit only named Bayes ; this has probably occasioned the mistake. The word Bay, indeed, is probably derived from Bacca, the name of the berry.
Thomson, as if resolved to have the right laurel at any rate, makes use of both :
fc from her majestic brow
She tore the laurel, and she tore the bay."
THOMSON'S BRITANNIA.
The Bay not only served to grace triumphant brows, mortal and immortal, but was also placed over the houses
FLORA DOMESTIC A.
of sick persons, from some superstitious notion of its ef- ficacy.
<f On avait vu a sa porte les branches de laurier et d'acanthe, que suivant 1'usage, on suspend a la maison d'un malade *."
" They had seen at his door the branches of laurel and acanthus, which it was the custom to suspend before the door of a sick person."
It adorned the gates of the Caesars and high pontiffs. It was worn by the priestess of Delphi, who chewed some of the leaves and threw them on the sacred fire. Let- ters and despatches sent from a victorious general to the senate were wrapped in Bay-leaves; the spears, tents, ships, &c. were all dressed up with them ; and, in the triumph, every common soldier carried a branch in his hand.
The Bay was in great esteem with the physicians, who considered it as a panacea. The statue of Esculapius, though perhaps with an allusion also to his father Apollo (who was the god of physic in general, as his son seems to have been of its practitioners), was adorned with its leaves. From the custom that prevailed in some places of crowning the young doctors in physic with this Laurel in berry (Bacca-lauri), the students were called Bacca- laureats, Bay-laureats, or Bachelors. The term has, with some propriety, been extended to single men, as the male and female berries do not grow on the same plant ; and it seems we might with equal correctness bestow the name upon unmarried ladies.
The decay of the Bay-tree was formerly considered by the superstitious as an omen of disaster. It is said that before the death of Nero, though in a very mild winter, all these trees withered to the root, (yet surely his death was no serious disaster !) and that a great pestilence in Padua
* Travels of Anacharsis the Younger, vol. ii. p. 178.
BAY. 63
was preceded by the same phenomenon. The Laurel had so great a reputation for clearing the air and resisting con- tagion, that during a raging pestilence Claudius was ad- vised by his physicians to remove his court to Laurentium on that account. It was also supposed to resist lightning, of which Tiberius was very fearful, and it is said, that to avoid it he would creep under his bed, and shade his head with the boughs.
Mr. L. Hunt alludes to this power in the Bay, in his Descent of Liberty :
ff Long have you my laurels worn,
And though some under leaves be torn Here and there, yet what remains Still its pointed green retains, And still an easy shade supplies To your calm-kept watchful eyes. Only would you keep it brightening, And its power to shake the lightning, Harmless down its glossy ears, Suffer not so many years To try what they can bend and spoil, But oftener in its native soil Let the returning slip renew Its upward sap and equal hue ; And wear it then with glory shaded Till the spent earth itself be faded."
In the induction to four plays in one, the poet says :
" Low at your sacred feet our poor Muse lays Her, and her thunder-fearless verdant bays."
BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER, vol. ii. p. 14.
W. Browne tells us also, that " Baies being the mate- rials of poets1 ghirlands, are supposed not subject to any hurt of Jupiter's thunderbolts, as other trees are." — (See note to page 8, vol. i.)
" Where bayes still grow (by thunder not struck down), The victor's garland and the poet's crown."
(See W. BROWNE'S POEMS, vol. iii.)
64 FLORA DOMESTICA.
-" none but laurel here
Shall 'scape thy blasting."
FORD'S SUN'S DARLING.
The Abbe Barthelemy describes a festival held at Thebes in honour of Apollo, in which the priest of that god, who is always a young man, handsome, and of high birth, walks in procession, with a crown of gold on his head, a branch of laurel in his hand, dressed in a magnificent robe, and with his hair floating over his shoulders ; he was followed by a number of young girls, also carrying branches of laurel, and singing hymns.
A young man, a relative of the priest, preceded him, bearing a long branch of olive, covered with flowers and laurel leaves, and terminated by a large globe of brass re- presenting the sun. To this globe were suspended several little balls of the same metal, for the stars, and three hun- dred and sixty-five purple streamers, which marked the days of the year. The moon was figured by a smaller globe placed beneath. The festival being in honour of Apollo, the design was to represent the pre-eminence of the sun over all the other stars.
It was called the feast of laurel boughs *.
It is remarkable that this beautiful tree, which is hardy, handsome, sweet, and an evergreen, to say nothing of classical associations, is so seldom and so sparingly culti- vated in this country. Evelyn tells us " that some Bay- trees were sent from Flanders with stems so even and up- right, and with heads so round, full, and flourishing, that one of them sold for twenty pounds ; and, doubtless," adds he, " as good might be raised here, were our gardeners as industrious to cultivate and shape them. I wonder we plant not whole groves of them, and abroad, they being
* See Anacharsis, vol. iii. p. 319.
BAY. 65
hardy enough, grow upright, and would make a noble Daphneon."
Virgil celebrates the filial affection of the Bay, where, speaking of the different methods of propagating trees, he says,
" Others have a thick wood arousing from their roots ; as cherries, and elms : the little Parnassian bay also shelters itself under the great shade of its mother." — MARTYN'S TRANSLATION, p. 114.
This would not, perhaps, convey to us so strong a meaning, did we not know, as Evelyn informs us, that while young, this tree thrives not well any where but under its " mother's shade : where nothing else will thrive."
The Bay is a native of Asia, and the southern parts of Europe ; it is not uncommon in the woods and hedges in Italy. The Abbe St. Pierre observes, " that it grows in abundance on the banks of the river Peneus, in Thessaly, which might well give occasion to the fable of the meta- morphosis of Daphne, the daughter of that river."
It may be raised from berries, suckers, cuttings, or layers : it will bear the open air, and when grown to a tolerable size, requires no other care than to water it occasionally in dry weather, to prune it in the spring, and to shift it into a larger pot when it has outgrown the old one. In doing this, the earth must not be cleared from the roots. A Bay- tree must not be hastily dismissed when it appears dead, but should be preserved till the second year ; for when past hope of recovery, they will often revive, and flourish again as well as ever.
On this account Sir Thomas Browne particularly admires a custom in Christian countries, of throwing a sprig of Bay upon the coffin when interred, as being an excellent symbol of immortality.
The Bay is mentioned in many ancient records, as having been used together with holly, rosemary, See. to deck houses
FLORA DOMESTIC A.
and churches at Christmas. It was sold about the streets of London for that purpose : Gay adverts to this custom :
" When rosemary, and bayes, the poet's crown, Are bawled in frequent cries through all the town ; Then judge the festival of Christmas near, Christmas, the joyous period of the year ! Now with bright holly all the temples strew, With laurel green, and sacred misseltoe."
GAY'S TRIVIA.
The Bay, which is the meed of the poet, a poet only can celebrate; and what flower or tree has been more highly celebrated than this tree, which the resemblance of its name to that of his mistress induced Petrarch to make the continual subject of his pen ? Thus, in speaking of the commencement of his passion, he uses this figure :
<c Amor fra 1' erbe una leggiadra rete D'oro e di perle tese sott' un ramo Del 1' arbor sempre verde, ch' i tant' amo Benche n' abbia ombre piu triste, che liete."
SONNET 148.
Love mid the grass laid forth a lovely net Of woven pearls and gold, under the veil Of that fair evergreen I love so well, Although its shade is sad to me while sweet.
Again :
" Arbor vittoriosa e trionfale, Onor d' imperadori e di poeti, Quanti m' hai fatto di dogliosi e lieti In questa breve mia vita mortale !"
SONNET 225,
O thou victorious and triumphant tree, Glory of poets and of emperors, How many sad and how many sweet hours Hast thou in this short life bestow'd on me !
" L' aura celeste; che 'n quel verde Lauro Spira, ov' Amor feri nel fianco Apollo E a me pose un dolce giogo al collo Tal, che mia liberta tardi ristauro."
SONNET 164.
BAY. 67
" L' aura che '1 vercle lauro, e 1' aureo crine Soavemente sospirando move ; Fa con sue viste leggiadrette, e nove L' anirae da' lor corpi pellegrine *.
SONNET 208.
Afte,r the death of Laura, he writes :
" Rotta e T alta Colonna, e 1 verde Lauro, Che facean ombra al mio stanco pensero :"
SONNET 229.
evidently alluding to the death of his mistress, and that of Cardinal Colonna; and a high compliment, indeed, it was to the cardinal, on such a subject to unite his name with hers.
How tender and how natural is the following sonnet :
" Quand' io veggio dal ciel scender 1'aurora Con la fronte di rose, e co' crin d' oro ; Amor m' assale : ond' io mi discoloro; E dico sospirando, ivi e Laura ora.
0 felice Titon tu sai ben 1' ora Da ricovrare il tuo caro tesoro :
Ma io che debbo far del dolce Alloro ; Che se '1 vo' riveder, conven ch' io mora.
1 vostri dipartir non son si duri ; Ch' almen di notte suol tornar colei
Che' non ha a schifo le tue bianche chiome : Le mie notti fa triste, e i giorni oscuri Quella, che n' ha portato i pensier miei ; Ne di se m'ha lasciato altro, che '1 nome."
SONNET 250.
Again I have to lament that the absence of a poetical friend will not allow me to add a proper translation of this sonnet. To give the English reader some notion of the subject, I have translated it in humble prose. I need not add, that this can convey but a very inadequate idea of the original :
* The play upon the word Laura in these passages does not (as the Italian reader will readily perceive) easily admit of translation.
OS FLORA DOMESTICA.
" When I behold Aurora descending from heaven, with her cheek of roses, and her locks of gold,, love assails me : I turn pale, and I say, sighing, where is Laura now? Oh, happy Tithonus, thou knowest well the hour when thou wilt recover thy dear treasure : hut what shall I do for the sweet laurel, which would I see again, I first must die ! Your parting is less cruel ; for night at least restores to thee her who scorns not thy white locks : she makes my nights sorrowful, and my days dark, who has borne away my thoughts, and of herself has left me nothing but the name."
But unless Petrarch's whole works are inserted, it will be a vain attempt to give all the passages in which he thus celebrates both his mistress and the tree. One or two more only shall be mentioned : the canzone beginning
and
Standomi un giorno solo a la fenestra •"
CANZONE 42.
" Quando il soave mio fido conforto."
CANZONE 47.
It was but just that he should be crowned with this be- loved Laurel, as it is well known that he was, publicly, at Rome; having been offered the same honourable distinc- tion at Paris also.
" The Laurel seems more appropriated to Petrarch, (says Mr. Hunt), than to any other poet. He delighted to sit under its leaves ; he loved it both for itself and for the resemblance of its name to that of his mistress; he wrote of it continually ; and he was called from out of its shade to be crowned with it in the Capitol. It is a remarkable instance of the fondness with which he che- rished the united ideas of Laura and the Laurel, that he confesses it to have been one of the greatest delights he experienced in receiving the crown upon his head *."
Chaucer bestows the Laurel upon the Knights of the Round Table, the Paladines of Charlemagne, and some of the Knights of the Garter,
* Indicator, No. XL. vol. i. page 316.
BAY. 69
" That in their timis did right worthily.
* * * * *
For one lefe givin of that noble tre To any wight that hath done worthily (An it he done so as it ought to be) Is more honour than any thing erthly, Witness of Rome j that foundir was truly Of all knighthode and dedis marvelous, Record I take of Titus Livius."
Chaucer evidently intends the genuine Laurel, not the usurper of the title, since he speaks of its sweet scent :
" And at the last I gan full well aspy Where she sate in a fresh grene laury tre, On the furthir side evin right by me, That gave so passing a delicious smell, According to the eglantere full well."
THE FLOURE AND THE LEAFE.
Chaucer describes a most magnificent Bay, in this poem ; a truly poetical one, and such an one as none but a poet is likely ever to see, in this country at least :
" And every lady tooke full womanly By the hand a knight, and forth they gede Unto a faire laurer that stood fast by, With leves lade the bough es of great brede ; And to my dome there never was indede Man, that had scene halfe so faire a tre ; - For underneath it there might well have be An hundred persons at their owne pleasaunce Shadowed fro the heat of Phebus bright, So that they should have felt no grevaunce Of raine, ne haile that hem hurte might, The savour eke rejoice would any wight That had be sicke or melaucolius ; It was so very good and vertuous."
Dryden has enlarged upon Chaucer not a little here :
" The ladies left their measures at the sight, To meet the chiefs returning from the fight, And each with open arms embraced her chosen knight :
70 FLORA DOMESTICA.
Amid the plain a spreading laurel stood, The grace and ornament of all the wood : That pleasing shade they sought, a soft retreat From sudden April showers, a shelter from the heat : Her leafy arms with such extent were spread, So near the clouds were her aspiring head, That hosts of birds that wing the liquid air Perched in the boughs had nightly lodging there, And flocks of sheep beneath the shade, from far Might hear the rattling hail, and wintry war, From Heaven's inclemency here found retreat, Enjoyed the cool, and shunned the scorching heat : A hundred knights might there at ease abide ; And every knight a lady by his side : The trunk itself such odours did bequeath, That a Moluccan breeze to these was common breath. The lords and ladies here, approaching, paid Their homage with a low obeisance made : And seemed to venerate the sacred shade."
The following lines, addressed by Tasso to a Laurel in his lady's hair, are, with their translation, taken from the Literary Pocket-Book for the year 1821 :
" O pianta trionfale, Onor d' imperatori, Hor de' nomi de' regi anco t' onori Cosi di pregio in pregio, Di vittoria in vittoria, Vai trapassando, e d' una in altra gloria ; Arbore gentile, e regio, Per che nulla ti manchi, orna le chiome Di chi d' Amor trionfa, e 1' alme ha dome."
O glad triumphal bough,
That now adornest conquering chiefs, and now
Clippest the brows of over-ruling kings :
From victory to victory
Thus climbing on, through all the heights of story,
From worth to worth, and glory unto glory ;
To finish all, O gentle and royal tree,
Thou reignest now upon that flourishing head,
At whose triumphant eyes Love and our souls are led.
BITTER- VETCH, 71
BELVEDERE.
CHENOPODIUM SCOPARIA.
ATRIPLICE^E. PENTANDRIA DIGYNIA,
Called also Summer Cypress. — French, la belvedere; bellevedere; belle a voir. — Italian, il belvedere : all which foreign names refer to its beautiful appearance.
THIS is an extremely handsome plant, growing very close and thick, in the form of a pyramid, as regular as if cut by art : it has so much the appearance of a young cypress tree, that but for the leaves being of a more lively green, it might at a little distance be mistaken for one. It grows naturally in Carniola, Greece, China, and Japan.
The seeds should be sown in autumn, singly, or several together, and divided into separate pots in the spring, when they come up. In autumn, when they ripen their seeds, if other pots are standing pretty near, the seeds will be apt to fall into them, and the self-sown plants will come up the following spring : so that it will be well to keep such pots as will not admit of such an unceremonious visitor at a suf- ficient distance to secure them from intrusion. The earth should be kept moderately moist.
BITTER-VETCH.
OROBUS.
LEGUMINOS^E. DIADELPHIA DECANDRIA.
French, 1'orobe; pois de pigeon ^pigeon's peaj.— Italian, orobo ; robiglia.
THE Yellow Bitter-Vetch is described by Haller as one of the handsomest of the papilionaceous tribe. It is a native of Siberia, Switzerland, Italy, and the south, of France. Spring Bitter-Vetch has a handsome flower, cu-
72 FLORA BOMESTICA.
riously shaded with red, purple, and blue, becoming alto- gether a sky-blue before it falls. It grows in the woods in many parts of Europe, and flowers in March and April. The Tuberous Bitter-Vetch, called also heath peas, wood peas, and in French gesse sauvage, has also a brilliant flower of red purple, fading to a blue' as it decays. The Highlanders, who call it corr, or cormeille, dry the tu- bercles of the root, and keep them in the mouth to flavour their liquor. They affirm, that they are enabled, by the use of them, to repel hunger and thirst for a long time. This idea reminds one of a passage in Pulci, where an enchanter preserves two knights from starvation during a long journey by giving them an herb, which, being held in the mouth, answers all the purposes of food.
The taste of these roots resembles that of liquorice-root, and, when boiled, they are well-flavoured and nutritive. In times of scarcity, they have served as a substitute for bread. The plant is a native of most parts of Europe. These, and the other hardy kinds, may be increased by parting the roots, which should be done in the autumn. They generally delight in shade, and prefer a loamy soil : the earth should be kept moderately moist.
BLOODWORT.
SANGUINARIA.
TAPAVERACE^;. POLYANDRIA MONOGYNIA.
The English name is from its blood- coloured juice. It is also named, by the Americans, Puccoon.
" THOUGH the Sanguinaria cannot be considered as a showy plant," says Mr. Martyn, " yet it has few equals in point of delicacy and singularity : there is something in it to admire, from the time that its leaves emerge from the
BOX TREE. 73
ground and embosom the infant blossom, till their full ex> pansion, and the ripening of the seeds."
In the woods of Canada, and other parts of North America, it grows in abundance : the Indians are said to paint their faces with the juice. In this country the flowers open in April, but they fully expand only in fine warm weather.
We are told, that in the year 1680 this plant was culti- vated in " Mr. Walker's suburban garden in St. James's Street, near the palace." Its flowers are white, and three or four flower-stems spring from one root : it prefers a loose soil and a shady situation, and may be annually in- creased by parting the roots in September. When the flowers decay, the green leaves come out, which last till Midsummer : from which time till autumn the roots remain inactive. It should be planted in a pot seven or eight inches wide, and an equal mixture of bog earth and rotten leaves will be the best soil. It must be watered every evening in dry summer weather. The earth may be co- vered with moss, which will tend to preserve the moisture in the summer, and to protect the roots from frost in the winter.
BOX TREE.
BUXUS.
EUPHORBIACEjE. MONOECIA TETRANPRIA,
French, le buis ; le bois beni [blessed wood]. — Italian, busso ; bosso; bossolo ; in the Brescian territory, martel [hammer wood] ; buz.
PROPERLY speaking, there is but one species of Box; varying much in size, and somewhat in the colour of its leaves. It may be easily propagated both by seeds and cuttings ; but is so slow of growth, as to be many years in
74 FLORA DOMESTICA.
attaining any considerable size. It is therefore advisable to purchase it of the size desired, rather than to raise it at home. It will thrive in any soil or exposure, and under the deepest shade. It is an evergreen, and re- markable for its fine glowing colour : particularly the dwarf kind. In the story of Rimini, it is called " sunny- coloured box." " The pleasantness of its verdure," says Evelyn, " is incomparable."
The Box-tree, though in gardens seldom seen more than three or four feet high, will, if not cut, rise to a height of twelve or fifteen. The wood is close-grained, very hard, and heavy. It is the only one of the European woods that will sink in water ; and is sold by weight, fetching a high price. Not being liable to warp, it is well adapted to a variety of nicer purposes ; as tops, screws, chess-men, pegs for musical instruments, knife-handles, modelling- tools, &c. The ancients made combs of it, which use is mentioned by Cowley in his poem on Plants :
te They tye the links that hold their gallants fast, And spread the nets to which fond lovers haste."
Thunberg says that Box is very common in Japan, both in a wild and in a cultivated state ; and that it is there made into combs, which are covered with a red varnish, and worn by the ladies for ornament*.
Corsican honey was supposed by the ancients to owe its ill name to the bees feeding upon Box : (Virgil indeed seems to attribute it to their feeding upon Yew).-f- None of our animals will touch it. Parkinson says, " the leaves
* Thunberg's Travels, vol. iii. p. 83, or 227.
t See Virgil's ninth Eclogue : not in Dryden's Version ; he makes no mention of Corsica. The ill qualities of the Corsican honey are, by some writers, attributed to the yews and hemlock which grow in that island in great abundance.
BOX TREE. 75
and saw-dust boiled in lye will change the hair to an auburn colour.1'
When it was the fashion to clip and cut trees into the shapes of beasts, birds, &c. the Box was considered as second only to the yew for that purpose ; for which, Pliny says that nothing is better adapted. Martial notices this quality in speaking of Bassus's garden :
" otiosis ordinata myrtetis,
Viduaque platano tonsilique buxeto."
" There likewise mote be seen on every side The yew obedient to the planter's will, And shapely box, of all their branching pride Ungently shorne, and with preposterous skill, To various beasts, and birds of sundry quill Transformed, and human shapes of monstrous size ; *****
" Also other wonders of the sportive shears Fair Nature mis-adorning, there were found Globes, spiral columns, pyramids and piers With sprouting urns, and budding statues crown'd ; And horizontal dials on the ground In living box by cunning artists traced ; And gallies trim, on no long voyage bound, But by their roots there ever anchored fast, All were their bellying sails outspread to every blast."
G. WEST.
This preposterous taste in gardening was at last reformed by the pure and classical taste of Bacon ; who, though no enemy to sculpture, did not approve of this absurd species of it : at once disfiguring art and nature.
" In several parts of the north of England, when a funeral takes place, a basin full of sprigs of Box-wood is placed at the door of the house from which the coffin is taken up ; and each person who attends the funeral ordi- narily takes a sprig of this Box-wood, and throws it into the grave of the deceased.11 — (See Note in WORDSWORTH'S POEMS, 8vo. vol. i. p. 163.)
76 FLORA DOMESTICA.
" The basin of box-wood, just six months before, Had stood on the table at Timothy's door ; A coffin through Timothy's threshold had pass'd, One child did it bear, and that child was his last."
WORDSWORTH.
Gerarde informs us, that turners and cutlers call Box- wood dudgeon, because they make dudgeon-hafted knives of it. The box-tree is a native of most parts of Europe, from Britain southwards : it also abounds in many parts of Asia and America. In England it was formerly much more common than at present.
" These trees," says Evelyn, " grow naturally at Boxley in Kent, and at Box-hill in Surrey : giving name to them. He that in winter should behold some of our highest hills in Surrey, clad with whole woods of them, for divers miles in circuit, as in those delicious groves of them belonging to the late Sir Adam Brown of Beckworth Castle, might easily fancy himself transported into some new or enchanted country."
But this enchantment has been long since dissolved. Mr. Millar, in 1759, lamented the great havoc made among the trees on Box-hill, though there then remained several of considerable magnitude ; but since that time the destruction has been yet greater. Not only this hill in Surrey, and Boxley in Kent, but Boxwell in Coteswold, Gloucester- shire, is said to be named from the Box tree. It has been made a serious and heavy complaint against Box, that it emits an exceedingly unpleasant odour, of which the poets speak as a thing notorious : yet it is only when fresh cut that the scent is unpleasant, and a little water poured over it immediately removes this objection.
According to Herrick it was the custom with our fore- fathers, on Candlemas day, to replace the Christmas ever- greens with sprigs of Box :
BROOM. 77
" Down with the rosemary and bays, Down with the misseltoe ; Instead of holly, now upraise The greener box for show.
The holly hitherto did sway ; Let box now domineer, Until the dancing Easter-day, Or Easter's eve appear :
Then youthful box, which now hath grace Your houses to renew, Grown old, surrender must his place Unto the crisped yew.
When yew is out, then birch comes in, And many flowers beside, Both of a fresh and fragrant kin To honour Whitsuntide :
. Green rushes then, and sweetest bents, With cooler oaken boughs, Come in for comely ornaments To readorn the house."
BROOM.
SPARTIUM.
LEGUMINOS.E. DIADELPHIA DECANDRIA.
French, le genet * ; le genet a balais. — Italian, sparzio ; scopa ; gi- nestra ; scornabecco : all referring to its use as besoms.
THE Brooms are very ornamental shrubs, with few leaves, but an abundance of brilliant and elegant flowers : they strike a deep root, but are too handsome to be rejected where
* The family of Plantagenet took their name from this shrub, which they wore as their device. It has been said that Fulk, the first Earl of Anjou of that name, being stung with remorse for some wicked action, went in pilgrimage to Jerusalem, as a work of atonement; where, being soundly scourged with broom-twigs, which grew plenti- fully on the spot, he ever after took the surname of Plantagenet, or Broom-plant, which was retained by his noble posterity.
78 FLORA DOMESTICA.
room can be afforded for them. They must be planted in a pot or tub of considerable depth. There are three species with white, and one with violet-coloured flowers : the others have all yellow blossoms.
The violet-coloured has no leaves, and is usually called the Leafless Broom : it was found by Pallas in the Wolga Desert. The Spanish Broom has yellow — the Portugal, white blossoms. The white-flowered, one-seeded kind, is a native both of Spain and Portugal. " It converts the most barren spot into a fine odoriferous garden,'" says Mr. Martyn, speaking of this species.
All the species here named will endure the cold without shelter : they do not like much wet. Our common Broom surpasses many of the foreign kinds in beauty : indeed, few shrubs are more magnificent than this evergreen, with its profusion of bright golden blossoms.
" On me such beauty summer pours That I am covered o'er with flowers ; And when the frost is in the sky, My branches are so fresh and gay That you might look at me, and say, This plant can never die.
* # * #
The butterfly, all green and gold, To me hath often flown, Here in my blossoms to behold Wings lovely as his own."
WORDSWORTH, vol. i. p. 259.
They are the delight of the bees : and the young buds, while yet green, are pickled like capers. It is said that the branches are of service in tanning leather, and that a kind of coarse cloth is manufactured from them. The young shoots are mixed with hops in brewing ; and the old wood is valuable to the cabinet-maker. Brooms are made from this shrub ; and, from their name, it is supposed to have furnished the first that were made.
BBOOM. 79
" Where yon brown hazels pendent catkins bear, And prickly furze unfolds its blossoms fair ; The vagrant artist oft at eve reclines, And broom's green shoots in besoms neat combines."
SCOTT of Am well.
In the north of Great Britain it is used for thatching cottages, corn, and hay-ricks, and making fences. In some parts of Scotland, where coals and wood are scarce, whole fields are sown with it for fuel.
But the Scotch have long been aware of the poetry as well as the utility of this beautiful shrub. The burden of one of their most popular songs is well known :
" O the broom, the bonny bonny broom,
The broom of the Cowden-knows ; For sure so soft, so sweet a bloom Elsewhere there never grows."
Burns lauds it, too, in one of his songs, written to an Irish air, which was a great favourite with him, called the Humours of Glen :
" Their groves of sweet myrtle let foreign lands reckon, Where bright beaming summers exalt the perfume ; Far dearer to me yon lone glen o' green breckan, Wi', the burn stealing under the lang yellow broom.
" Far dearer to me are yon humble broom bowers,
Where the blue-bell and gowan lurk lowly unseen ; For there lightly tripping amang the sweet flowers, A listening the linnet, oft wanders my Jean."
" 'Twas that delightful season, when the broom Full-flowered, and visible on every steep, Along the copses runs in veins of gold."
WORDSWORTH'S POEMS, 8vo. vol. ii. p. 265.
Thomson speaks of it as a favourite food of kine. It flowers in May and June.
" Yellow and bright, as bullion unalloyed, Her blossoms."
COWPER'S TASK.
SO FLORA DOMESTIC A.
Broom makes a pleasant shade for a lounger in the summer : it seems to embody the sunshine, while it inter- cepts its heat :
" To noontide shades incontinent he ran, Where purls the brook with sleep-inviting sound ; Or, when Dan Sol to slope his wheels began, Amid the broom he basked him on the ground, Where the wild thyme and camomile are found."
CASTLE OF INDOLENCE, Canto I.
Mr. Horace Smith speaks of it as poisonous, yet most of the species are eaten by cattle : some are particularly recommended as a food for kine. The Base Broom, or Green-weed, is said to embitter the milk of the cows that eat of it ; but, from the bitterness of the plant itself, they commonly refuse it.
" my herd
Cannot be browsed upon the mount, for so The heifers might devour with eager tongue The poisonous budding brooms."
AMARYNTHUS.
Virgil speaks of it as a food for cattle :
" salices, humilesque genistse,
Aut illae pecori frondem, aut pastoribus umbras Sufficiunt ; sepemque satis, et pabula melli."
GEORGIC ii.
" Willows and humble broom afford either browse for the cattle, or shade for the shepherds, and hedges for the fields, and food for bees."
MARTYN'S TRANSLATION.
The poet is supposed to intend the Spanish Broom in this passage, which grows plentifully in some parts of Italy, and of which the Italians weave the slender branches into baskets.
Virgil speaks of it in another passage as the " bending broom." In England, the Broom has generally a kind of sharp and arrow-like straightness ; in Italy, where it rises higher than in this country, the branches being very slender, do not support themselves so stiffly
BROOM. 81
Clorin, in the Faithful Shepherdess, reproves
" the lazy clowns
That feed their heifers in the budded brooms."
Mr. Seward observes, in a note upon this passage, that this instance of laziness is taken from Spenser's Shepherd^s Calendar for February, and supposes it to mean that they leave their herds among the broom, which grows on the worst soil, instead of driving them into the best pastures *.
" So loitering live you little herd-grooms, Keeping your beasts in the budded brooms."
SPENSER.
Dr. Hall complains much of the negligence of the farmers in taking so little heed to check the growth of thistles, furze, broom, &c. even in the fields in the neighbourhood of Edin- burgh. " It is well known," says he, " that the seeds of thistles, rag-weed, and the like, are blown with the wind, and that though furze, as Lord Kaimes observes, is the only shrub in Britain that flowers all the year round ; and broom in bloom is one of the most beautiful shrubs we have, and appears like gold at a distance, yet they ought, if possible, to be completely extirpated out of those parts of the country where sheep are not reared. And it is to be hoped the day is not far distant when the farmers who allow thistles, ragweed, and the like, to seed on their fields, without having attempted to prevent them, will be sub- jected to a penalty -fV
Browne alludes to the use of Broom in thatching : " Among the flags below, there stands his coate,
A simple one, thatched o'er with reed and broom ;
It hath a kitchen, and a several room
For each of us."
BRITANNIA'S PASTORALS.
A Russian poet speaks of the Broom as a tree :
* See Beaumont and Fletcher, vol. iv. p. 127. t Hall's Scotland, p. 605.
o
FLORA DOMESTICA.
" See there upon the broom-tree's bough The young grey eagle flapping now."
BOWRING'S RUSSIAN ANTHOLOGY.
The blossom of the Common Broom closely resembles that of the Furze, both in form and colour — that Furze which sheds such a lustre over our heaths and commons, and at sight of which, it is said, Dillenius fell into a perfect ecstasy. In many parts of Germany the Furze-bush is un- known. Gerarde says, that about Dantzic, Brunswick, and in Poland, there was not a sprig of either Furze or Broom ; and