Old flowers, I said. I was wrong; for they are not so old. When we study
their history and investigate their pedigrees, we learn with surprise
that most of them, down to the simplest and commonest, are new beings,
freedmen, exiles, newcomers, visitors, foreigners. Any botanical
treatise will reveal their origins. The Tulip, for instance (remember La
Bruyère’s “Solitary,” “Oriental,” “Agate,” and “Cloth of Gold”), came
from Constantinople in the sixteenth century. The Ranuncula, the
Lunaria, the Maltese Cross, the Balsam, the Fuchsia, the African
Marigold, or Tagetes Erecta, the Rose Campion, or Lychnis
Coronaria, the two-coloured Aconite, the Amaranthus Caudatus, or
Love-lies-bleeding, the Hollyhock and the Campanula Pyramidalis arrived
at about the same time from the Indies, Mexico, Persia, Syria and Italy.
The Pansy appears in 1613; the Yellow Alyssum in 1710; the Perennial
Flax in 1775; the Scarlet Flax in 1819; the Purple Scabious in 1629; the
Saxifraga Sarmentosa in 1771; the Long-leaved Veronica in 1713. The
Perennial Phlox is a little older. The Indian Pink made its entrance
into our gardens about 1713. The Garden Pink is of modern date. The
Portulaca did not make her appearance till 1828; the Scarlet Sage till
1822. The Ageratum, or Cœlestinum, now so plentiful and so popular,
is not two centuries old. The Helichrysum, or Everlasting, is even
younger. The Zinnia is exactly a centenarian. The Spanish Bean, a native
of South America, and the Sweet Pea, an immigrant from Sicily, number a
little over two hundred years. The Anthemis, whom we find in the
least-known villages, has been cultivated only since 1699. The charming
blue Lobelia of our borders came to us from the Cape of Good Hope at the
time of the French Revolution. The China Aster, or Reine Marguerite, is
dated 1731. The Annual or Drummond’s Phlox, now so common, was sent over
from Texas in 1835. The large-flowered Lavatera, who looks so confirmed
a native, so simple a rustic, has blossomed in our gardens only since
two centuries and a half; and the Petunia since some twenty lustres. The
Mignonette, the Heliotrope--who would believe it?--are not two hundred
years old. The Dahlia was born in 1802; and the Gladiolus is of
yesterday.