Proserpina, Volume 1 | Page 3

I violently blame in others. I do so; but with a different motive--of which let the reader judge as he is disposed. The practical result will be that the children who learn botany on the system adopted in this book will know the useful and beautiful names of plants hitherto given, in all languages; the useless and ugly ones they will not know. And they will have to learn one Latin name for each plant, which, when differing from the common one, I trust may yet by some scientific persons be accepted, and with ultimate advantage.
The learning of the one Latin name--as, for instance, Gramen striatum--I hope will be accurately enforced {7} always;--but not less carefully the learning of the pretty English one--"Ladielace Grass"--with due observance that "Ladies' laces hath leaves like unto Millet in fashion, with many white vaines or ribs, and silver strakes running along through the middest of the leaves, fashioning the same like to laces of white and green silk, very beautiful and faire to behold."
I have said elsewhere, and can scarcely repeat too often, that a day will come when men of science will think their names disgraced, instead of honoured, by being used to barbarise nomenclature; I hope therefore that my own name may be kept well out of the way; but, having been privileged to found the School of Art in the University of Oxford, I think that I am justified in requesting any scientific writers who may look kindly upon this book, to add such of the names suggested in it as they think deserving of acceptance, to their own lists of synonyms, under the head of "Schol. Art. Oxon."
The difficulties thrown in the way of any quiet private student by existing nomenclature may be best illustrated by my simply stating what happens to myself in endeavouring to use the page above facsimile'd. Not knowing how far St. Bruno's Lily might be connected with my own pet one, and not having any sufficient book on Swiss botany, I take down Loudon's Encyclop?dia of Plants, (a most useful book, as far as any book in the present state of the science can be useful,) and find, under the head of Anthericum, the Savoy Lily indeed, but only the {8} following general information:--"809. Anthericum. A name applied by the Greeks to the stem of the asphodel, and not misapplied to this set of plants, which in some sort resemble the asphodel. Plants with fleshy leaves, and spikes of bright yellow flowers, easily cultivated if kept dry."
Hunting further, I find again my Savoy lily called a spider-plant, under the article Hemerocallis, and the only information which the book gives me under Hemerocallis, is that it means 'beautiful day' lily; and then, "This is an ornamental genus of the easiest culture. The species are remarkable among border flowers for their fine orange, yellow, or blue flowers. The Hemerocallis coerulea has been considered a distinct genus by Mr. Salisbury, and called Saussurea." As I correct this sheet for press, however, I find that the Hemerocallis is now to be called 'Funkia,' "in honour of Mr. Funk, a Prussian apothecary."
All this while, meantime, I have a suspicion that my pet Savoy Lily is not, in existing classification, an Anthericum, nor a Hemerocallis, but a Lilium. It is, in fact, simply a Turk's cap which doesn't curl up. But on trying 'Lilium' in Loudon, I find no mention whatever of any wild branched white lily.
I then try the next word in my specimen page of Curtis; but there is no 'Phalangium' at all in Loudon's index. And now I have neither time nor mind for more search, but will give, in due place, such account as I can {9} of my own dwarf branched lily, which I shall call St. Bruno's, as well as this Liliastrum--no offence to the saint, I hope. For it grows very gloriously on the limestones of Savoy, presumably, therefore, at the Grande Chartreuse; though I did not notice it there, and made a very unmonkish use of it when I gathered it last:--There was a pretty young English lady at the table-d'h?te, in the Hotel du Mont Blanc at St. Martin's,[3] and I wanted to get speech of her, and didn't know how. So all I could think of was to go half-way up the Aiguille de Varens, to gather St. Bruno's lilies; and I made a great cluster of them, and put wild roses all around them as I came down. I never saw anything so lovely; and I thought to present this to her before dinner,--but when I got down, she had gone away to Chamouni. My Fors always treated me like that, in affairs of the heart.
I had begun my studies of Alpine botany just eighteen years before, in 1842, by