208 THE JOITKNAL OF UOTANY 



of Tokio — is now in its fourth volume. The number for May con- 

 tains excellent figures and descrijjtions (in Latin and Japanese) of 

 Leontopodiiim leiolepis, Pertya macrophyUa, and Aconitum hon- 

 dense, by T. Nakai. 



The History of Tony, Shropsliire (ed. 2 : 1894) by George 

 Griffith contains a long account of the tree shown as the " Boscobel 

 Oak," with quotations from various writers concerning it. The 

 author records his conviction that this is " one and the same tree 

 which sheltered the royal and jovial, if unworthy, King " and this 

 conviction ** prompts [him] to commit to paper some notices and notes 

 to quell the storms of detraction which gather round this and similar 

 marks of antiquity." Of White Ladies Abbey, near Tong, he says: 

 *' Here grew the yellow saffron or autumn crocus, which an old 

 herbalist informs me, grew at Tung {sic) and all Komish places ; 

 there still grow the Myrrhis Odorata, a relic of the Nuns' herb- 

 garden, and other rare plants." What plant can have been intended 

 by *' yellow saffron " ? 



The Daily News, whose botany we have more than once had 

 occasion to criticize, published on July 19 this interesting note " on 

 Garden-flower Names " : — " A friend in Kent was very much struck 

 by the glories of a border of pentstemons in a cottage garden, and she 

 stopped to chat with the old man in charge of it. A few da3^s later 

 he presented her with a big bunch of blooms. ' I thought,' he said, 

 * as you'd like a few of my French demons.' * Gay ladies,' for gail- 

 lardias, is another version — a quite good one — of a garden-flower 

 name. Those who know the fiery orange of the eschscholtzia, or 

 Californian poppy, will think the common ' a scorcher ' an equally 

 appropriate name. Fortunately in the countiy we still stick to the 

 old names for snap-dragons, larkspurs, monks-hood, and so forth. 

 You have to go to the .London street markets to get the Latinised 

 forms, which are usually rendered in some such versions as these : 

 Antiryneum, Aunty-Kinum ; Dolphyneum, Dorfinnyum ; Alkonituni 

 (aconitum) ; Gipsy-Ophelia (for gypsophila) ; Nemerney (anemone). 

 Antirrhinum and pyrethrum are the two plants which are most often 

 called out of their names." 



From the same source comes the following, which are perhaps too 

 frivolous for our serious Journal : " The park had once been a private 

 estate, and the old gardener has spent the greater part of his life teach- 

 ing the ground to say [grow ?] flowers. * Could you tell me to what 

 family this plant belongs ? ' inquired a teacher conducting her class 

 through the park. ' I happen to know it don't belong to no family,' 

 returned the old man indignantly, ' it belongs to this here park.' 



" The story of the gardener and the plant reminds a correspondent 

 of the other gardener at Kew. He listened to a teacher discoursing 

 to his class under a tree in the Gardens. He called the tree an 

 elm, and pointing out that the elm had been introduced into Britain 

 by the Romans, asked rhetorically : ' If this elm could only speak 

 what history it could tell us ! I wonder what it would say.' And 

 the gardener, disgusted : ' It would say,' ' I'm not a helm ; I'm a 

 hoak ! ' " 



