172 THE FLORIST. 



HISTORY AND CULTURE OF MIGNONETTE. 



It is now an age since this fragrant weed of Egypt first perfumed 

 the European gardens, and it is so far climated as to spring from 

 seed of its own sowings. The Reseda odorata first found its way to 

 the south of France, where it was welcomed by the name of Mig- 

 nonette (Little Darling), which was found too appropriate for this 

 sweet little flower to be ever afterwards exchanged for any other. 

 By a manuscript note in the library of the late Sir Joseph Banks, it 

 appears that the seed of the Mignonette was sent in 1742, by Lord 

 Bateman, from the Royal Garden at Paris, to Mr. Richard Bateman 

 at Old Windsor ; but we should presume that this seed was not dis- 

 persed, and perhaps not cultivated beyond Mr. Bateman's garden, as 

 we find that Mr. Miller received the seed from Dr. Adrian Van Royen, 

 of Leyden, and cultivated it in the Botanic Garden at Chelsea in 

 the year 1752. From Chelsea it soon got into the gardens of the 

 London florists, so as to enable them to supply the metropolis with 

 plants to furnish out the balconies, — a fact noticed by Cowper, who 

 attained the age of twenty-one in the year that this flower first per- 

 fumed the British atmosphere by its fragrance. The author of the 

 Task soon afterwards celebrates it as a favourite plant in London — 



" the sashes fronted with a range 



Of orange, myrtle, or the fragrant weed." 



The odour which this little flower exhales is thought by some to 

 be too powerful for the house ; but even those persons, we presume, 

 must be delighted with the fragrance which it throw's from the bal- 

 conies into tiie streets, giving something like a breath of garden-air 

 to the *' close-pent man" whose avocations will not permit a ramble 

 beyond the squares of the fashionable part of the town. To such 

 persons it must be a luxurious treat to catch a few ambrosial gales 

 on a summer evening, from the heated pavement where offensive 

 odours are but too commonly met with. We have frequently found 

 the perfume of the Mignonette so powerful in some of the better 

 streets, that we have considered it sufficient to protect the inhabi- 

 tants from those effluvia that bring disorder with them in the air. 

 This genus of plants, of which there are a good many species, was 

 named Reseda by the ancients, from resedare, to assuage, because 

 some of the species were esteemed good for mitigating pain. 



The Mignonette is transformed into a perennial shrub, which dis- 

 penses its odours at all seasons of the year, by the following simple 

 treatment : A young plant should be placed in a garden-pot, with a 

 stick of about eighteen inches in height inserted by its side, to tie 

 up its branches to ; as it advances in height, the leaves and young 

 branches being kept stripped off from the lower part, so as to form a 

 stem to the height required, this stem will become sufficiently hard 

 and woody to endure the winter, by being placed in a greenhouse or 

 the window of a sitting-room, and may be preserved for several 

 years, if air is given to it whenever the weather will allow, so that 



