GENEALOGY.
1. Returning, after more than a year's sorrowful interval, to my Sicilian
fields,--not incognisant, now, of some of the darker realms of Proserpina;
and with feebler heart, and, it may be, feebler wits, for wandering in her
brighter ones,--I find what I had written by way of sequel to the last
chapter, somewhat difficult, and extremely tiresome. Not the less, after
giving fair notice of the difficulty, and asking due pardon for the
tiresomeness, I am minded to let it stand; trusting to end, with it, once
for all, investigations of the kind. But in finishing this first volume of
my School Botany, I must try to give the reader some notion of the plan of
the book, as it now, during the time for thinking over it which illness
left me, has got itself arranged in my mind, within limits of possible
execution. And this the rather, because I wish also to state, somewhat more
gravely than I have yet done, the grounds on which I venture here to reject
many of the received names of plants; and to substitute others for them,
relating to entirely different attributes {177} from those on which their
present nomenclature is confusedly edified.
I have already in some measure given the reasons for this change;[47] but I
feel that, for the sake of those among my scholars who have laboriously
learned the accepted names, I ought now also to explain its method more
completely.
2. I call the present system of nomenclature _confusedly_ edified, because
it introduces,--without, apparently, any consciousness of the
inconsistency, and certainly with no apology for it,--names founded
sometimes on the history of plants, sometimes on their qualities, sometimes
on their forms, sometimes on their products, and sometimes on their
poetical associations.
On their history--as 'Gentian' from King Gentius, and Funkia from Dr. Funk.
On their qualities--as 'Scrophularia' from its (quite uncertified) use in
scrofula.
On their forms--as the 'Caryophylls' from having petals like husks of nuts.
On their products--as 'Cocos nucifera' from its nuts.
And on their poetical associations,--as the Star of Bethlehem from its
imagined resemblance to the light of that seen by the Magi.
3. Now, this variety of grounds for nomenclature might patiently, and even
with advantage, be permitted, {178} provided the grounds themselves were
separately firm, and the inconsistency of method advisedly allowed, and, in
each case, justified. If the histories of King Gentius and Dr. Funk are
indeed important branches of human knowledge;--if the Scrophulariaceæ do
indeed cure King's Evil;--if pinks be best described in their likeness to
nuts;--and the Star of Bethlehem verily remind us of Christ's Nativity,--by
all means let these and other such names be evermore retained. But if Dr.
Funk be not a person in any special manner needing either stellification or
florification; if neither herb nor flower can avail, more than the touch of
monarchs, against hereditary pain; if it be no better account of a pink to
say it is nut-leaved, than of a nut to say it is pink-leaved; and if the
modern mind, incurious respecting the journeys of wise men, has already
confused, in its Bradshaw's Bible, the station of Bethlehem with that of
Bethel,[48] it is certainly time to take some order with the partly false,
partly useless, and partly forgotten literature of the Fields; and, before
we bow our children's memories to the burden of it, ensure that there shall
be matter worth carriage in the load.
4. And farther, in attempting such a change, we must be clear in our own
minds whether we wish our nomenclature to tell us something about the plant
itself, or only to tell us the place it holds in relation to other plants:
as, for instance, in the Herb-Robert, would it be well to {179} christen
it, shortly, 'Rob Roy,' because it is pre-eminently red, and so have done
with it;--or rather to dwell on its family connections, and call it
'Macgregoraceous'?
5. Before we can wisely decide this point, we must resolve whether our
botany is intended mainly to be useful to the vulgar, or satisfactory to
the scientific élite. For if we give names characterizing individuals, the
circle of plants which any country possesses may be easily made known to
the children who live in it: but if we give names founded on the connexion
between these and others at the Antipodes, the parish school-master will
certainly have double work; and it may be doubted greatly whether the
parish school-boy, at the end of the lecture, will have half as many ideas.
6. Nevertheless, when the features of any great order of plants are
constant, and, on the whole, represented with great clearness both in cold
and warm climates, it may be desirable to express this their citizenship of
the world in definite nomenclature. But my own method, so far as hitherto
developed, consists essentially in fastening the thoughts of the pupil on
the special character of the plant, in the place where he is likely to see
it; and therefore, in expressing the power of its race and order in the
wider world, rather by reference to mythological associations than to
botanical structure.
7. For instance, Plate VII. represents, of its real size, an ordinary
spring flower in our English mountain fields. It is an average
example,--not one of rare size under rare {180} conditions,--rather smaller
than the average, indeed, that I might get it well into my plate. It is one
of the flowers whose names I think good to change; but I look carefully
through the existing titles belonging to it and its fellows, that I may
keep all I expediently can. I find, in the first place, that Linnæus called
one group of its relations, Ophryds, from Ophrys,--Greek for the
eyebrow,--on account of their resemblance to the brow of an animal
frowning, or to the overshadowing casque of a helmet. I perceive this to be
really a very general aspect of the flower; and therefore, no less than in
respect to Linnæus, I adopt this for the total name of the order, and call
them 'Ophrydæ,' or, shortly, 'Ophryds.'
8. Secondly: so far as I know these flowers myself, I perceive them to fall
practically into three divisions,--one, growing in English meadows and
Alpine pastures, and always adding to their beauty; another, growing in all
sorts of places, very ugly itself, and adding to the ugliness of its
indiscriminated haunts; and a third, growing mostly up in the air, with as
little root as possible, and of gracefully fantastic forms, such as this
kind of nativity and habitation might presuppose. For the present, I am
satisfied to give names to these three groups only. There may be plenty of
others which I do not know, and which other people may name, according to
their knowledge. But in all these three kinds known to me, I perceive one
constant characteristic to be _some_ manner of _distortion_ and I desire
that fact,--marking a {181} spiritual (in my sense of the word) character
of extreme mystery,--to be the first enforced on the mind of the young
learner. It is exhibited to the English child, primarily, in the form of
the stalk of each flower, attaching it to the central virga. This stalk is
always twisted once and a half round, as if somebody had been trying to
wring the blossom off; and the name of the family, in Proserpina, will
therefore be 'Contorta'[49] in Latin, and 'Wreathe-wort' in English.
Farther: the beautiful power of the one I have drawn in its spring life, is
in the opposition of its dark purple to the primrose in England, and the
pale yellow anemone in the Alps. And its individual name will be,
therefore, 'Contorta purpurea'--_Purple_ Wreathe-wort.
And in drawing it, I take care to dwell on this strength of its color, and
to show thoroughly that it is a _dark_ blossom,[50] before I trouble myself
about its minor characters.
9. The second group of this kind of flowers live, as I said, in all sorts
of places; but mostly, I think, in disagreeable ones,--torn and irregular
ground, under alternations of unwholesome heat and shade, and among swarms
of nasty insects. I cannot yet venture on any bold general statement about
them, but I think that is mostly their way; and at all events, they
themselves are in the {182} habit of dressing in livid and unpleasant
colors; and are distinguished from all other flowers by twisting, not only
their stalks, but one of their petals, not once and a half only, but two or
three times round, and putting it far out at the same time, as a foul
jester would put out his tongue: while also the singular power of grotesque
mimicry, which, though strong also in the other groups of their race, seems
in the others more or less playful, is, in these, definitely degraded, and,
in aspect, malicious.
10. Now I find the Latin name 'Satyrium' attached already to one sort of
these flowers; and we cannot possibly have a better one for all of them. It
is true that, in its first Greek form, Dioscorides attaches it to a white,
not a livid, flower; and I dare say there are some white ones of the breed:
but, in its full sense, the term is exactly right for the entire group of
ugly blossoms of which the characteristic is the spiral curve and
protraction of their central petal: and every other form of Satyric
ugliness which I find among the Ophryds, whatever its color, will be
grouped with them. And I make them central, because this humour runs
through the whole order, and is, indeed, their distinguishing sign.
11. Then the third group, living actually in the air, and only holding fast
by, without nourishing itself from, the ground, rock, or tree-trunk on
which it is rooted, may of course most naturally and accurately be called
'Aeria,' as it has long been popularly known in English by the name of
Air-plant. {183}
Thus we have one general name for all these creatures, 'Ophryd'; and three
family or group names, Contorta, Satyrium, and Aeria,--every one of these
titles containing as much accurate fact about the thing named as I can
possibly get packed into their syllables: and I will trouble my young
readers with no more divisions of the order. And if their parents, tutors,
or governors, after this fair warning, choose to make them learn, instead,
the seventy-seven different names with which botanist-heraldries have
beautifully ennobled the family,--all I can say is, let them at least begin
by learning them themselves. They will be found in due order in pages 1084,
1085 of Loudon's Cyclopædia.[51]
12. But now, farther: the student will observe that the name of the total
order is Greek; while the three family ones are Latin, although the central
one is originally Greek also.
I adopt this as far as possible for a law through my whole plant
nomenclature.
13. Farther: the terminations of the Latin family names will be, for the
most part, of the masculine, {184} feminine, and neuter forms, us, a, um,
with these following attached conditions.
(I.) Those terminating in 'us,' though often of feminine words, as the
central Arbor, will indicate either real masculine strength (quereus,
laurus), or conditions of dominant majesty (cedrus), of stubbornness and
enduring force (crataegus), or of peasant-like commonalty and hardship
(juncus); softened, as it may sometimes happen, into gentleness and
beneficence (thymus). The occasional forms in 'er' and 'il' will have
similar power (acer, basil).
(II.) Names with the feminine termination 'a,' if they are real names of
girls, will always mean flowers that are perfectly pretty and perfectly
good (Lucia, Viola, Margarita, Clarissa). Names terminating in 'a' which
are not also accepted names of girls, may sometimes be none the less
honourable, (Primula, Campanula,) but for the most part will signify either
plants that are only good and worthy in a nursy sort of way, (Salvia,) or
that are good without being pretty, (Lavandula,) or pretty without being
good, (Kalmia). But no name terminating in 'a' will be attached to a plant
that is neither good nor pretty.
(III.) The neuter names terminating in 'um' will always indicate some power
either of active or suggestive evil, (Conîum, Solanum, Satyrium,) or a
relation, more or less definite, to death; but this relation to death may
sometimes be noble, or pathetic,--"which {185} to-day is, and to-morrow is
cast into the oven,"--Lilium.
But the leading position of these neuters in the plant's double name must
be noticed by students unacquainted with Latin, in order to distinguish
them from plural genitives, which will always, of course, be the second
word, (Francesca Fontium, Francesca of the Springs.)
14. Names terminating in 'is' and 'e,' if definitely names of women, (Iris,
Amaryllis, Alcestis, Daphne,) will always signify flowers of great beauty,
and noble historic association. If not definitely names of women, they will
yet indicate some specialty of sensitiveness, or association with legend
(Berberis, Clematis). No neuters in 'e' will be admitted.
15. Participial terminations (Impatiens), with neuters in 'en' (Cyclamen),
will always be descriptive of some special quality or form,--leaving it
indeterminate if good or bad, until explained. It will be manifestly
impossible to limit either these neuters, or the feminines in 'is' to Latin
forms; but we shall always know by their termination that they cannot be
generic names, if we are strict in forming these last on a given method.
16. How little method there is in our present formation of them, I am
myself more and more surprised as I consider. A child is shown a rose, and
told that he is to call every flower like that, 'Rosaceous';[52] he is next
{186} shown a lily, and told that he is to call every flower like that,
'Liliaceous';--so far well; but he is next shown a daisy, and is not at all
allowed to call every flower like that, 'Daisaceous,' but he must call it,
like the fifth order of architecture, 'Composite'; and being next shown a
pink, he is not allowed to call other pinks 'Pinkaceous,' but 'Nut-leafed';
and being next shown a pease-blossom, he is not allowed to call other
pease-blossoms 'Peasaceous,' but, in a brilliant burst of botanical
imagination, he is incited to call it by two names instead of one,
'Butterfly-aceous' from its flower, and 'Pod-aceous' from its seed;--the
inconsistency of the terms thus enforced upon him being perfected in their
inaccuracy, for a daisy is not one whit more composite than Queen of the
meadow, or Jura Jacinth;[53] and 'legumen' is not Latin for a pod, but
'siliqua,'--so that no good scholar could remember Virgil's 'siliqua
quassante legumen,' without overthrowing all his Pisan nomenclature.
17. Farther. If we ground our names of the higher orders on the distinctive
characters of _form_ in plants, these are so many, and so subtle, that we
are at once involved in more investigations than a young learner has ever
time to follow successfully, and they must be at all times liable to
dislocations and rearrangements on the discovery of any new link in the
infinitely entangled {187} chain. But if we found our higher nomenclature
at once on historic fact, and relative conditions of climate and character,
rather than of form, we may at once distribute our flora into unalterable
groups, to which we may add at our pleasure, but which will never need
disturbance; far less, reconstruction.
18. For instance,--and to begin,--it is an historical fact that for many
centuries the English nation believed that the Founder of its religion,
spiritually, by the mouth of the King who spake of all herbs, had likened
himself to two flowers,--the Rose of Sharon, and Lily of the Valley. The
fact of this belief is one of the most important in the history of
England,--that is to say, of the mind or heart of England: and it is
connected solemnly with the heart of Italy also, by the closing cantos of
the Paradiso.
I think it well therefore that our two first generic, or at least
commandant, names heading the out-laid and in-laid divisions of plants,
should be of the rose and lily, with such meaning in them as may remind us
of this fact in the history of human mind.
It is also historical that the personal appearing of this Master of our
religion was spoken of by our chief religious teacher in these terms: "The
Grace of God, that bringeth salvation, hath appeared unto all men." And it
is a constant fact that this 'grace' or 'favor' of God is spoken of as
"giving us to eat of the Tree of Life."
19. Now, comparing the botanical facts I have to express, with these
historical ones, I find that the rose tribe {188} has been formed among
flowers, not in distant and monstrous geologic æras, but in the human
epoch;--that its 'grace' or favor has been in all countries so felt as to
cause its acceptance everywhere for the most perfect physical type of
womanhood;--and that the characteristic fruit of the tribe is so sweet,
that it has become symbolic at once of the subtlest temptation, and the
kindest ministry to the earthly passion of the human race. "Comfort me with
apples, for I am sick of love."
20. Therefore I shall call the entire order of these flowers 'Charites,'
(Graces,) and they will be divided into these five genera, Rosa, Persica,
Pomum, Rubra, and Fragaria. Which sequence of names I do not think the
young learner will have difficulty in remembering; nor in understanding why
I distinguish the central group by the fruit instead of the flower. And if
he once clearly master the structure and relations of these five genera, he
will have no difficulty in attaching to them, in a satellitic or
subordinate manner, such inferior groups as that of the Silver-weed, or the
Tormentilla; but all he will have to learn by heart and rote, will be these
six names; the Greek Master-name, Charites, and the five generic names, in
each case belonging to plants, as he will soon find, of extreme personal
interest to him.
21. I have used the word 'Order' as the name of our widest groups, in
preference to 'Class,' because these widest groups will not always include
flowers like each other in form, or equal to each other in vegetative rank;
{189} but they will be 'Orders,' literally like those of any religious or
chivalric association, having some common link rather intellectual than
national,--the Charites, for instance, linked by their kindness,--the
Oreiades, by their mountain seclusion, as Sisters of Charity or Monks of
the Chartreuse, irrespective of ties of relationship. Then beneath these
orders will come, what may be rightly called, either as above in Greek
derivation, 'Genera,' or in Latin, 'Gentes,' for which, however, I choose
the Latin word, because Genus is disagreeably liable to be confused on the
ear with 'genius'; but Gens, never; and also 'nomen gentile' is a clearer
and better expression than 'nomen generosum,' and I will not coin the
barbarous one, 'genericum.' The name of the Gens, (as 'Lucia,') with an
attached epithet, as 'Verna,' will, in most cases, be enough to
characterize the individual flower; but if farther subdivision be
necessary, the third order will be that of Families, indicated by a 'nomen
familiare' added in the third place of nomenclature, as Lucia
Verna,--Borealis; and no farther subdivision will ever be admitted. I avoid
the word 'species'--originally a bad one, and lately vulgarized beyond
endurance--altogether. And varieties belonging to narrow localities, or
induced by horticulture, may be named as they please by the people living
near the spot, or by the gardener who grows them; but will not be
acknowledged by Proserpina. Nevertheless, the arbitrary reduction under
Ordines, Gentes, and Familiæ, {190} is always to be remembered as one of
massive practical convenience only; and the more subtle arborescence of the
infinitely varying structures may be followed, like a human genealogy, as
far as we please, afterwards; when once we have got our common plants
clearly arranged and intelligibly named.
22. But now we find ourselves in the presence of a new difficulty, the
greatest we have to deal with in the whole matter.
One new nomenclature, to be thoroughly good, must be acceptable to scholars
in the five great languages, Greek, Latin, French, Italian, and English;
and it must be acceptable by them in teaching the native children of each
country. I shall not be satisfied, unless I can feel that the little maids
who gather their first violets under the Acropolis rock, may receive for
them Æschylean words again with joy. I shall not be content, unless the
mothers watching their children at play in the Ceramicus of Paris, under
the scarred ruins of her Kings' palace, may yet teach them there to know
the flowers which the Maid of Orleans gathered at Domremy. I shall not be
satisfied unless every word I ask from the lips of the children of Florence
and Rome, may enable them better to praise the flowers that are chosen by
the hand of Matilda,[54] and bloom around the tomb of Virgil.
{191}
23. Now in this first example of nomenclature, the Master-name, being
_pure_ Greek, may easily be accepted by Greek children, remembering that
certain also of their own poets, if they did not call the flower a Grace
itself, at least thought of it as giving gladness to the Three in their
dances.[55] But for French children the word 'Grâce' has been doubly and
trebly corrupted; first, by entirely false theological scholarship,
mistaking the 'Favor' or Grace done by God to good men, for the
'Misericordia,' or mercy, shown by Him to bad ones; and so, in practical
life, finally substituting 'Grâce' as a word of extreme and mortal prayer,
for 'Merci,' and of late using 'Merci' in a totally ridiculous and
perverted power, for the giving of thanks (or refusal of offered good):
while the literally derived word 'Charite' has become, in the modern mind,
a gift, whether from God or man, only to the wretched, never to the happy:
and lastly, 'Grâce' in its physical sense has been perverted, by their
social vulgarity, into an idea, whether with respect to form or motion,
commending itself rather to the ballet-master than either to the painter or
the priest.
For these reasons, the Master name of this family, for my French pupils,
must be simply 'Rhodiades,' which will bring, for them, the entire group of
names into easily remembered symmetry; and the English form of {192} the
same name, Rhodiad, is to be used by English scholars also for all tribes
of this group except the five principal ones.
24. Farther, in every gens of plants, one will be chosen as the
representative, which, if any, will be that examined and described in the
course of this work, if I have opportunity of doing so.
This representative flower will always be a wild one, and of the simplest
form which completely expresses the character of the plant; existing
divinely and unchangeably from age to age, ungrieved by man's neglect, and
inflexible by his power.
And this divine character will be expressed by the epithet 'Sacred,' taking
the sense in which we attach it to a dominant and christened majesty, when
it belongs to the central type of any forceful order;--'Quercus sacra,'
'Laurus sacra,' etc.,--the word 'Benedicta,' or 'Benedictus,' being used
instead, if the plant be too humble to bear, without some discrepancy and
unbecomingness, the higher title; as 'Carduus Benedictus,' Holy Thistle.
25. Among the gentes of flowers bearing girls' names, the dominant one will
be simply called the Queen, 'Rose Regina,' 'Rose the Queen' (the English
wild rose); 'Clarissa Regina,' 'Clarissa the Queen' (Mountain Pink); 'Lucia
Regina,' 'Lucy the Queen' (Spring Gentian), or in simpler English, 'Lucy of
Teesdale,' as 'Harry of Monmouth.' The ruling flowers of groups {193} which
bear names not yet accepted for names of girls, will be called simply
'Domina,' or shortly 'Donna.' 'Rubra domina' (wild raspberry): the wild
strawberry, because of her use in heraldry, will bear a name of her own,
exceptional, 'Cora coronalis.'
26. These main points being understood, and concessions made, we may first
arrange the greater orders of land plants in a group of twelve, easily
remembered, and with very little forcing. There must be _some_ forcing
always to get things into quite easily tenable form, for Nature always has
her ins and outs. But it is curious how fitly and frequently the number of
twelve may be used for memoria technica; and in this instance the Greek
derivative names fall at once into harmony with the most beautiful parts of
Greek mythology, leading on to early Christian tradition.
27. Their series will be, therefore, as follows: the principal subordinate
groups being at once placed under each of the great ones. The reasons for
occasional appearance of inconsistency will be afterwards explained, and
the English and French forms given in each case are the terms which would
be used in answering the rapid question, 'Of what order is this flower?'
the answer being, It is a 'Cyllenid,' a 'Pleiad,' or a 'Vestal,' as one
would answer of a person, he is a Knight of St. John or Monk of St.
Benedict; while to the question, of what gens, we answer, a Stella or an
Erica, as one would answer of a person, a Stuart or Plantagenet. {194}
I. CHARITES.
ENG. CHARIS. FR. RHODIADE.
Rosa. Persica. Pomum. Rubra. Fragaria.
II. URANIDES.
ENG. URANID. FR. URANIDE.
Lucia. Campanula. Convoluta.
III. CYLLENIDES.
ENG. CYLLENID. FR. NEPHELIDE.
Stella. Francesca. Primula.
IV. OREIADES.
ENG. OREIAD. FR. OREADE.
Erica. Myrtilla. Aurora.
V. PLEIADES.
ENG. PLEIAD. FR. PLEIADE.
Silvia. Anemone.
VI. ARTEMIDES.
ENG. ARTEMID. FR. ARTEMIDE.
Clarissa. Lychnis. Scintilla. Mica.
VII. VESTALES.
ENG. VESTAL. FR. VESTALE.
Mentha. Melitta. Basil. Salvia. Lavandula. Thymus.
VIII. CYTHERIDES.
ENG. CYTHERID. FR. CYTHERIDE.
Viola. Veronica. Giulietta.
{195}
IX. HELIADES.
ENG. ALCESTID. FR. HELIADE.
Clytia. Margarita. Alcestis. Falconia. Carduus.
X. DELPHIDES.
ENG. DELPHID. FR. DELPHIDE.
Laurus. Granata. Myrtus.
XI. HESPERIDES.
ENG. HESPERID. FR. HESPERIDE.
Aurantia. Aglee.
XII. ATHENAIDES.
ENG. ATHENAID. FR. ATHENAIDE.
Olea. Fraxinus.
I will shortly note the changes of name in their twelve orders, and the
reasons for them.
I. CHARITES.--The only change made in the nomenclature of this order is the
slight one of 'rubra' for 'rubus': partly to express true sisterhood with
the other Charites; partly to enforce the idea of redness, as
characteristic of the race, both in the lovely purple and russet of their
winter leafage, and in the exquisite bloom of scarlet on the stems in
strong young shoots. They have every right to be placed among the Charites,
first because the raspberry is really a more important fruit in domestic
economy than the strawberry; and, secondly, because the wild bramble is
often in its wandering sprays even more graceful than the rose; and in
blossom and {196} fruit the best autumnal gift that English Nature has
appointed for her village children.
II. URANIDES.--Not merely because they are all of the color of the sky, but
also sacred to Urania in their divine purity. 'Convoluta' instead of
'convolvulus,' chiefly for the sake of euphony; but also because pervinca
is to be included in this group.
III. CYLLENIDES.--Named from Mount Cyllene in Arcadia, because the three
races included in the order alike delight in rocky ground, and in the cold
or moist air of mountain-clouds.
IV. OREIADES.--Described in next chapter.
V. PLEIADES.--From the habit of the flowers belonging to this order to get
into bright local clusters. Silvia, for the wood-sorrel, will I hope be an
acceptable change to my girl-readers.
VI. ARTEMIDES.--Dedicate to Artemis for their expression of energy, no less
than purity. This character was rightly felt in them by whoever gave the
name 'Dianthus' to their leading race; a name which I should have retained
if it had not been bad Greek. I wish them, by their name 'Clarissa' to
recall the memory of St. Clare, as 'Francesca' that of St. Francis.[56] The
{197} 'issa,' not without honour to the greatest of our English moral
story-tellers, is added for the practical reason, that I think the sound
will fasten in the minds of children the essential characteristic of the
race, the cutting of the outer edge of the petal as if with scissors.
VII. VESTALES.--I allow this Latin form, because Hestiades would have been
confused with Heliades. The order is named 'of the hearth,' from its
manifold domestic use, and modest blossoming.
VIII. CYTHERIDES.--Dedicate to Venus, but in all purity and peace of
thought. Giulietta, for the coarse, and more than ordinarily false,
Polygala.
IX. HELIADES.--The sun-flowers.[57] In English, Alcestid, in honour to
Chaucer and the Daisy.
X. DELPHIDES.--Sacred to Apollo. Granata, changed from Punica, in honor to
Granada and the Moors.
XI. HESPERIDES.--Already a name given to the order. {198} Aegle, prettier
and more classic than Limonia, includes the idea of brightness in the
blossom.
XII. ATHENAIDES.--I take Fraxinus into this group, because the mountain
ash, in its hawthorn-scented flower, scarletest of berries, and exquisitely
formed and finished leafage, belongs wholly to the floral decoration of our
native rocks, and is associated with their human interests, though lightly,
not less spiritually, than the olive with the mind of Greece.
28. The remaining groups are in great part natural; but I separate for
subsequent study five orders of supreme domestic utility, the Mallows,
Currants, Pease,[58] Cresses, and Cranesbills, from those which, either in
fruit or blossom, are for finer pleasure or higher beauty. I think it will
be generally interesting for children to learn those five names as an easy
lesson, and gradually discover, wondering, the world that they include. I
will give their terminology at length, separately.
29. One cannot, in all groups, have all the divisions of equal importance;
the Mallows are only placed with the other four for their great value in
decoration of cottage gardens in autumn: and their softly healing {199}
qualities as a tribe. They will mentally connect the whole useful group
with the three great Æsculapiadæ, Cinchona, Coffea, and Camellia.
30. Taking next the water-plants, crowned in the DROSIDÆ, which include the
five great families, Juncus, Jacinthus, Amaryllis, Iris, and Lilium, and
are masculine in their Greek name because their two first groups, Juncus
and Jacinthus, are masculine, I gather together the three orders of
TRITONIDES, which are notably trefoil; the NAIADES, notably quatrefoil, but
for which I keep their present pretty name; and the BATRACHIDES,[59]
notably cinqfoil, for which I keep their present ugly one, only changing it
from Latin into Greek.
31. I am not sure of being forgiven so readily for putting the Grasses,
Sedges, Mosses, and Lichens together, under the great general head of
Demetridæ. But it seems to me the mosses and lichens belong no less
definitely to Demeter, in being the first gatherers of earth on rock, and
the first coverers of its sterile surface, than the grass which at last
prepares it to the foot and to the food of man. And with the mosses I shall
take all the especially moss-plants which otherwise are homeless or
companionless, Drosera, and the like, and as a connecting link with the
flowers belonging to the Dark {200} Kora, the two strange orders of the
Ophryds and Agarics.
32. Lastly will come the orders of flowers which may be thought of as
belonging for the most part to the Dark Kora of the lower world,--having at
least the power of death, if not its terror, given them, together with
offices of comfort and healing in sleep, or of strengthening, if not too
prolonged, action on the nervous power of life. Of these, the first will be
the DIONYSIDÆ,--Hedera, Vitis, Liana; then the DRACONIDÆ,--Atropa,
Digitalis, Linaria; and, lastly, the MOIRIDÆ,--Conîum, Papaver, Solanum,
Arum, and Nerium.
33. As I see this scheme now drawn out, simple as it is, the scope of it
seems not only far too great for adequate completion by my own labour, but
larger than the time likely to be given to botany by average scholars would
enable them intelligently to grasp: and yet it includes, I suppose, not the
tenth part of the varieties of plants respecting which, in competitive
examination, a student of physical science is now expected to know, or at
least assert on hearsay, _something_.
So far as I have influence with the young, myself, I would pray them to be
assured that it is better to know the habits of one plant than the names of
a thousand; and wiser to be happily familiar with those that grow in the
nearest field, than arduously cognisant of all that plume the isles of the
Pacific, or illumine the Mountains of the Moon. {201}
Nevertheless, I believe that when once the general form of this system in
Proserpina has been well learned, much other knowledge may be easily
attached to it, or sheltered under the eaves of it: and in its own
development, I believe everything may be included that the student will
find useful, or may wisely desire to investigate, of properly European
botany. But I am convinced that the best results of his study will be
reached by a resolved adherence to extreme simplicity of primal idea, and
primal nomenclature.
34. I do not think the need of revisal of our present scientific
classification could be more clearly demonstrated than by the fact that
laurels and roses are confused, even by Dr. Lindley, in the mind of his
feminine readers; the English word laurel, in the index to his first volume
of Ladies' Botany, referring them to the cherries, under which the common
laurel is placed as 'Prunus Laurocerasus,' while the true laurel, 'Laurus
nobilis,' must be found in the index of the second volume, under the Latin
form 'Laurus.'
This accident, however, illustrates another, and a most important point to
be remembered, in all arrangements whether of plants, minerals, or animals.
No single classification can possibly be perfect, or anything _like_
perfect. It must be, at its best, a ground, or _warp_ of arrangement only,
through which, or over which, the cross threads of another,--yes, and of
many others,--must be woven in our minds. Thus the almond, though in {202}
the form and colour of its flower, and method of its fruit, rightly
associated with the roses, yet by the richness and sweetness of its kernel
must be held mentally connected with all plants that bear nuts. These
assuredly must have something in their structure common, justifying their
being gathered into a conceived or conceivable group of 'Nuciferæ,' in
which the almond, hazel, walnut, cocoa-nut, and such others would be
considered as having relationship, at least in their power of secreting a
crisp and sweet substance which is not wood, nor bark, nor pulp, nor
seed-pabulum reducible to softness by boiling;--but quite separate
substance, for which I do not know that there at present exists any
botanical name,--of which, hitherto, I find no general account, and can
only myself give so much, on reflection, as that it is crisp and close in
texture, and always contains some kind of oil or milk.
35. Again, suppose the arrangement of plants could, with respect to their
flowers and fruits, be made approximately complete, they must instantly be
broken and reformed by comparison of their stems and leaves. The three
_creeping_ families of the Charites,--Rosa, Rubra, and Fragaria,--must then
be frankly separated from the elastic Persica and knotty Pomum; of which
one wild and lovely species, the hawthorn, is no less notable for the
massive accumulation of wood in the stubborn stem of it, than the wild rose
for her lovely power of wreathing her garlands at pleasure wherever they
are {203} fairest, the stem following them and sustaining, where they will.
36. Thus, as we examine successively each part of any plant, new
sisterhoods, and unthought-of fellowships, will be found between the most
distant orders; and ravines of unexpected separation open between those
otherwise closely allied. Few botanical characters are more definite than
the leaf structure illustrated in Plate VI., which has given to one group
of the Drosidæ the descriptive name of Ensatæ, (see above, Chapter IX., §
11,) but this conformation would not be wisely permitted to interfere in
the least with the arrangement founded on the much more decisive floral
aspects of the Iris and Lily. So, in the fifth volume of 'Modern Painters,'
the sword-like, or rather rapier-like, leaves of the pine are opposed, for
the sake of more vivid realization, to the shield-like leaves of the
greater number of inland trees; but it would be absurd to allow this
difference any share in botanical arrangement,--else we should find
ourselves thrown into sudden discomfiture by the wide-waving and opening
foliage of the palms and ferns.
37. But through all the defeats by which insolent endeavors to sum the
orders of Creation must be reproved, and in the midst of the successes by
which patient insight will be surprised, the fact of the _confirmation_ of
species in plants and animals must remain always a miraculous one. What
outstretched sign of constant Omnipotence can be more awful, than that the
susceptibility to {204} external influences, with the reciprocal power of
transformation, in the organs of the plant; and the infinite powers of
moral training and mental conception over the nativity of animals, should
be so restrained within impassable limits, and by inconceivable laws, that
from generation to generation, under all the clouds and revolutions of
heaven with its stars, and among all the calamities and convulsions of the
Earth with her passions, the numbers and the names of her Kindred may still
be counted for her in unfailing truth;--still the fifth sweet leaf unfold
for the Rose, and the sixth spring for the Lily; and yet the wolf rave
tameless round the folds of the pastoral mountains, and yet the tiger flame
through the forests of the night.
* * * * *
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