Proserpina, Volume 1 | Page 3

thus faultfully hitherto titled.
As I do not do this for my own pride, but honestly for my reader's
service, I neither question nor care how far the emendations I propose
may be now or hereafter adopted. I shall not even name the cases in
which they have been made for the serious reason above specified; but
even shall mask those which there was real occasion to alter, by

sometimes giving new names in cases where there was no necessity of
such kind. Doubtless I shall be accused of doing myself what 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 Encyclopædia 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'hôte, in the Hotel du Mont Blanc at St.
Martin's,[3] and I wanted to get speech of