IRISH GARDENING 



VOLUME XV 



No. 176 



Editor-J- W Besant 



A MONTHLY JOURNAL DEVOTED TO THE 



ADVANCEMENT OF HORTICULTURE AND 



ARBORICULTURE IN IRELAND 



OCTOBER 

 1920 



Linnaea borealis. 



NEW YrtKK 

 BOTANIC At 



As he who has visited Switzerhind 

 must be able to tell something 

 about the Edelweiss (Le onto podium 

 alpinum), Switzeidand's iriost 

 popular plant, so will he who has 

 been in Sweden be able to tell 

 about Linncea borealis. No wild 

 plant in Sweden (it is better to 

 write in Scandinavia) is better 

 known and loved than Linnwa 

 *|| borealis, and in our rockeries it 

 certainly ought to get a place. It is 

 wrongly supposed to be difficult to 

 cidtivate. A shady, moist place, 

 facing the north, in sandy woodland 

 soil is the most suitable one. With 

 its long, elegant, slender, upright 

 stalks, furnished with small leaves 

 in opposite pairs, which are green 

 all winter and remain on the plant, 

 it creeps nearly unperoeived over 

 tlie ground. The flowers with 

 which Linncea borealis is adorned 

 continue from June imtil mid 

 October. The richest flowering is, 

 however, from mid June till 

 July. They are campanulate, and 

 the bells no longer than half an inch, while the 

 colour is delicate white \\'ith pink veins and 

 yellow honey mark inside. They emit a very 

 fine and strong perfume. 



But allowing the fact that Linncea borealis 

 is a lovely rock plant, which is wholly worth 

 our admiration, it mex'its alsoi our special 

 attention by virtue of its name, in which we 

 immediately recognise that of the famous and 

 universally known Swedish botanist, Linnaeus. 

 Linncea borealis is the smallest woody plant 

 known, and it was exactly this hvm'ible 

 character which attracted Linnaeus in his 

 youth ; and the love of this little plant re- 

 mained for the whole of his life, because, later 

 on, when Linnaeus was raised to the nobility 

 we see Linncea borealis put in the place of 

 honour in his amiorial bearings. 



Like the Dutch proverb which says " a 

 lovely child has many names," sO' also^ has 

 Linncea been known under many names ; for 

 besides that the plant is called by Linnaeus 

 himself as Linnaea we find it back in different 

 periods under no lesser than nine different 

 names, of which Campanula serpyllifolium 

 and Ruclbechia are the principal. Li a day- 

 book of Linnaeus about his great Lapland 

 journey in 1732 we find for the first time the 

 name Linnaea: afterwards in several of his 

 works we find the plant under other names 

 until in his book " Species i^lantarum, 1753," 

 the plant is kept definitively toi the na^me 

 Linnaea. 



Besides the scientific name, the plant in 

 Sweden has also many popular names accord- 

 ing to the plaee where it is growing. While it 

 is very hard and sometimes impossible to 

 translate these names intO' English we name a 

 couple. In the province of Angermanland it 

 is named windgras= windgrass; in the pro- 

 vince of Dalsland, jordkronor = soil kroner, in 

 reference to the round shape of the leaves, 

 which are, however, much smaller than the 

 coin, the Swedish kroner. 



The name borealis means northern, with re- 

 ferenc^e to the plant growing best and 

 luxuiiant in the northern coimtries. We find 

 it especially in the large forests of Lapland, 

 Varmland and Nedelpad, all Swedish provinces 

 where Linncea borealis grows very freely in 

 the shade on peaty, woodland soil, with pre- 

 ference for soil formed from the fallen needles 

 of the pine trees. The plant is also foimd in 

 some parts of North Germany, the Alps, and 

 in many parts of Russia. 



A special study of Linncea borectlis was made 

 some years ago in the Botanic Gardens at 

 Stockholm (Bergianska Tradgarden) and a 

 book describing nearly 150 sub-varieties, the 

 result of this study, was written by the late 

 curator of the garden. Prof. Wittrock. 



J. VAN DEX Berg. 



