THE ENRICHMENT OF ENGLISH GARDENS 115 



house, which could be taken down and put together 

 again. A still more famous orangerie was that of 

 Heidelberg, which served as an example to the kings 

 and nobles of Europe. 1 Henri IV. built one at the 

 Tuileries, and long afterwards Louis XIV. had one at 

 Versailles. Madame de Sevigne describes the orangerie 

 of Clagny as a palace of Armida, and the most enchant- 

 ing novelty in the world. The pine-apple was brought 

 over from Barbadoes in the seventeenth century, and 

 Evelyn speaks of having tasted the first pine-apple 

 grown in England at the table of Charles the Second. 

 For two hundred years the hothouse yielded no greater 

 dainty, but rapid transit has now made pine-apples so 

 cheap that it is no longer worth while to raise them in 

 England. Fagon, who was during many years first 

 physician to Louis XIV., was a considerable botanist. 

 He was born and died at the Jardin des Plantes, and 

 here, on his retirement from practice, he built hot- 

 houses ; it would be interesting to know what he grew 

 in them. 



In the first half of the seventeenth century the 

 younger Tradescant, who, like his father before 

 him, was gardener to our Charles I., brought over 

 from America the spider-wort, named Tradescantia 

 after him, 2 the false acacia and the tulip-tree. The 

 magnolias, or some of them, the Virginian creeper, 

 and the scarlet Lobelia cardinalis were among 

 the gifts received from North America about the 



1 Parkinson (1629) speaks of a stove or hothouse, " such as are 

 used in Germany." 



2 The graceful practice of naming genera of plants after bene- 

 factors to botany or horticulture was introduced by Father 

 Plumier (1646-1704), who gave the names of L'Obel and Fuchs to 

 the Lobelia and Fuchsia, and whose own name is appropriately 

 borne by the frangipane (Plumeria). 



