FAVOURITE FLOWERS OF GARDEN AND GREEN-
THERE have been many publications issued lately professing
to deal with gardens and " garden-lore," but generally from what may be called the sentimentalist point of view. Senti- mentalism is somewhat antiquated in novels,—authors are no longer applauded for the creation of delicately sensitive beings who wither at the first blast of adversity, weep copiously, faint on the smallest provocation, and would die sooner than betray their feelings. The nymph Senti- mentality being ousted from novels, has taken refuge in modern gardens, and waxes poetical over pergolas or Alpine rockeries, voluble over herbaceous borders, and hysterical over her favourite contrasts and colour-effects. New regions are ransacked for new flowers, treasured specimens are coaxed into existence amid alien surroundings, long labels recording polysyllabic names overshadow small plants, the fashionable amateur talks glibly of Zaluzianskya selaginoides or Alonsoa warscewiczii, and the professional gardener who rears out- landish delicacies invents unpronounceable compounds which few can venture to compete with or to contradict. We con- fess to being a little weary of the modern garden-book with its crescendo of high notes, its oleaginous gush of language, its strange jumbling of cause and effect, and we have, therefore,
welcomed Mr. Step's work as it came out in numbers for its clear and practical directions, its interesting collection of information, and its total absence of verbal over-colouring. We are not so sure that the name of the book clearly points not its real character. We are inclined to think that
" favourite " flowers are those that by long habit and associa- tion have endeared themselves to gardeners, and are familiar to the unscientific and unlearned. Many of the flowers and shrubs mentioned by Mr. Step have been introduced into Great Britain in comparatively recent years,—we can hardly imagine any one speaking familiarly or without due respect of Ixiolirion Ifolpakowskianum, for instance. Perhaps new poets will arise who will embody these many-syllabled strangers in their odes and lyrics, new Ophelias will strew them on new stages, and instead of "pansies freaked with jet," or " sweet- peas on tip-toe for a flight," we shall accustom our ears to harsh compounds and outlandish surnames, and by and by a new "language of flowers" will take the place of the old one dear to poets and to an old-fashioned world.
The knowledge and craft of gardening has advanced with extraordinary rapidity of late years, and the number of plants to which Mr. Step adds a recent date of introduction must strike the most casual reader. Specialists have written voluminously on the cultivation of the rose, the Alpine plant, the bamboo, to mention only a few of the latest publications,
but we have not seen any recent book that brings together so large a variety of plants on a similar plan. To quote from the introduction " The plan adopted in the work may be briefly stated. The principal genera cultivated in gardens are represented, and these genera are grouped under the Natural Orders to which they belong. They are also introduced to readers in the sequence generally adopted by botanists, beginning with Ranunculacew and ending with Ferns. Each genus is described and its name explained, the prevailing characteristics are noticed and its horticultural history briefly sketched. Then follow a description of the principal species known in gardens and a selection of the best varieties to serve as a guide to the amateur These descriptions have been extended to allied species and genera which are not illustrated, so that the complete work will constitute a general treatise upon the plants chiefly cultivated in gardens and greenhouses. Directions are given for the cultivation and propagation of the species and varieties, with hints as to the appropriate soil, situations, times for planting, sowing, striking, grafting, and so forth."
The excellent directions for cultivation are provided by Mr. Edward Step, F.L.S., and revised by Mr. W. Watson, F.R.H.S., • Farourit• Flwers of Garden and Greenhouse. By Edward Step, P.L. S., and William Watson, F.R.LIS. London : F. Warne and Co. Assistant-Curator at Kew, a well-known authority on such matters. Opening Vol. III. at random our attention was drawn to the chapter on Lilacs, and in spite of the modesty that disclaimed hints on the cultivation of such a well-known hardy shrub, we found some useful advice which we cannot remember having seen in any similar work. With reference to the neglect to which lilacs are generally subjected Mr. Step says :—" Their numerous suckers are allowed to grow unchecked, and consequently the elegant tree becomes a shapeless bush that flowers sparingly. The chief attention required is the removal of these suckers and the digging in of fresh soil from time to time. The waste of energy stopped, a main trunk is formed, and the bush becomes a tree upon which, in spring-time, blossoms are more conspicuous than leaves." This advice as to removing the suckers from lilacs is not to be found in Johnson's Gardener's Dictionary, published in 1894, or in Sanders's Encyclopxdia of Gardening, 1895, though, as a role, most practical information about gardening is to be found in both books. On the other hand, we cannot help regretting several omissions. For instance, we have looked in vain for such well-established greenhouse favourites as stephanotis, lapageria, and cissus discolor, and we cannot imagine why they should have been left out and an illustration and a page of letterpress devoted to the "spotted dead nettle," for, as Mr. Step himself remarks, nettles are rarely seen in gardens "by the introduction of the gardener."
Gorgeous and many-coloured as are the Orchidew, which certainly deserve a volume to themselves, or the tiger and flamingo flowers (to select instances at random), we own to a decided feeling of relief when we open a page at one of the " real old-fashioned garden flowers," such as amarantus caudatus with its luxuriance of deep red flowering trails. Mr. Step calls its English name of "love lies bleeding" sentimental, but who does not remember- " Bid amaranthus all his beauty shed," and associate it as Milton does with "every flower that sad embroidery wears "P—and the pages seem redolent with familiar scents when we read of jessamine or myrtle, lilac or clove- pink. We learn from a casual remark of Mr. Step's concerning Dictamnus or the " burning bush" why some plants have been so long cultivated in this country that they are them- selves spoken of as "old-fashioned,"—" as implied in the statement that Dictamnus is a plant of old-fashioned gardens, its culture is a simple affair." It is then to this simplicity of habit that we are indebted for the long continuation of such old friends as lavender, sweet-william, honesty, coxcombs, or candytuft. The homely old names are so familiar that we overlook their inappropriateness. They are the legacy of older days, when simplicity of nomenclature was more in favour than scientific accuracy. French honeysuckle (Hedysarunb coronariuns) is a case in point. We learn that " even to the most casual reader it is probably unnecessary to explain that this species has no affinity with the honeysuckle (Lonicera), notwithstanding the popular name. This is a parallel case with the name of blackbeetle, which entomologists are never tired of reminding us is neither black nor a beetle. H. coronarium, is neither a honeysuckle nor a native of France; and whilst we call it French honeysuckle, the French people name it Spanish Sanfoin. and Sulla."
The illustrations are carefully drawn and coloured, and students of botany will doubtless find much assistance in the dissections of flowers and seeds that accompany each plate. Though we have no doubt that all the flowers have been studied "direct from Nature," still we cannot help observing that the results are very unequal ; in some cases the colouring is deeper and harder than in reality, in others paler; but print- ing in colours is seldom wholly satisfactory, and in a work of so much merit, hypercriticism is unnecessary. Compared with the illustrations in Maund's Botanic Garden and Paxton's Magazine of Botany there is a distinct advance in the direction of reproducing what Mr. Step calls the characteristic pose of the plant. We notice that M. D. Bois, the compiler of the Atlas des Plantes de Jardine, selected and arranged the plates, and as that work suggested the idea of the present delightful volumes, we feel sure that with such collaborators to advise and instruct gardeners, whether amateur or professional, there is no fear that our British gardens will lose their happy supremacy.
Previous page
