The Call of the Wildflower

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heard of "the language of flowers," and of its romantic associations; but the language of botany is

hands, so to speak, we experiment in fungus-eating, and learn that a particular mushroom has its stem "fistulose, subsquamulose, its pileus membranaceous, rarely subcarnose, when young ova

d to me that "they could scarcely be said to be written in any known lang

and often eluding the efforts of learned and scientific men. By schoolboys it is sometimes exhibited in perfection; as in a case that I remember at a public school, where three bro

ern, classical learning and medi?val folk-lore, in which the really characteristic features are often overlooked. In this respect the Latin names are worse

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umbrous and far-fetched though many of them are-as when the saintfoin is absurdly labelled onobrychis, on the supposition that its scent provokes an ass to

r: stellaria, for example, as I have already said, is more elegant than "stitchwort." "What have I done?" asks the sm

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lowering rush" to butomus; and so on, through a long list: and it therefore seems rather strange that the native titles should sometimes be ousted by the foreign. I have me

common hare's-ear" would soon find that he had got his work cut out. There are, in fact, not many plants that are everywhere common; most of

icating supposed remedies for ills that flesh is heir to. Others, if less obvious, are still not far to seek; the "scabious," for example, derived from the Latin scabies, was reputed to be a cure for leprosy: a few, like "eye-bright" (euphrasia, gladness)

the pharmacop?ia. Sometimes, indeed, it is beyond cavil; as in the fit association of the little linn?a borealis with the great botanist who loved it; but when a number of the less important professors of the science are immortalized in this way, there seems to be something rather irrelevant, if not absurd, in such nomenclature. Why, for example, should two of the more charming crucifers be named respectively Hutchinsia and Teesdalia, after

but a few of the well-bestowed names which, by an immediate appeal to the eye, fix the flower in the mind; they are at once simple and appropriate: in others, such as Adonis, Columbine, penny-cress, cranberry, lady's-mantle, and thorow-wax, the description, if less manifest at first sight, is none the less charming when recognized. The Latin, too, is at time

go to bed at noon" for the goat's-beard; "creeping Jenny" for the money-wort; and "lady's-fingers" for the kidney-vetch. Of the romantically named plants the most conspicuous example is doubtless the forget-me-not, its English name contrasting, as it does, with the