80 THE JOURNAL OF BOTANY 



Cystopus Tragopogonis Schroet. Kryptfl. Schles. Pilz. 234 



(1886). 

 ?C. spinulosus de Bary in Eabenh. Fmig. Europ.y No. 479 



(1862) ; Ann. Sci. Nat., 4th ser., xx, 133 (1863). 



EOUSSEAU AS BOTANIST. 

 By Bruce Gummings. 



In his early days, Jean Jacques Eousseau sampled most of the 

 good things in the intellectual larder, and more than once — like a 

 mischievous boy — brought the jampot down on his head. He 

 read anatomy until he fancied he had " a polypus at the heart." 

 A mixture of " quicklime, orpiment and water " exploded in his 

 face, and so put a short term to his researches in experimental 

 physics. In astronomy and geology his studies were equally 

 short, and we may be sure that he was the least likely person to 

 resume his struggles with the science of numbers at the bidding 

 of the facetious lady of Venice, who, it will be remembered, made 

 him a present of this sound advice: " Lascia le donne e studia ie 

 matematiche." 



At the time when Rousseau was one of the remarkable menage 

 at Les Charmettes, the study of botany, one day to become his 

 master passion, made no appeal to him. Nay, he despised it, 

 considering botany as a subject fit merely for an apothecary, and 

 Rousseau's opinion of apothecaries and physicians was at no time 

 very high. Madam de Warens herself was a herbalist rather than 

 a botanist, and that silent devotee, Claude Anet, was originally 

 taken into her service because he was a herbalist and because 

 Madame thought it convenient to have among her domestics 

 someone with a knowledge of drugs. 



Botany therefore became confounded in Rousseau's mind with 

 anatomy and medicine, and served only to afford him frequent 

 opportunities for pleasantries at Madam de Warens's expense, in 

 this way earning for himself a friendly box on the ears. 



But even in those days of high contemptuous youth, Rousseau 

 was sometimes persuaded, at the beck of Madam de Warens, to 

 bend his head over a plant, while " Mama " pointed out to him a 

 thousand natural beauties which greatly amused him and should 

 have made him a botanist.''' " But the time was not yet, and my 

 attention was arrested by too many other studies " — by music in 

 particular. 



It was more than twenty years later that Rousseau's slum- 

 bering interest in botany burst into the flame of real passion. By 



* During a walk at Cressier in 1764; Eousseau noticed a Periwinkle growing 

 among some undergrowth and was immediately transported in memory' back to 

 his old friend Madam de Warens, and to the incident when she drew his atten- 

 tion to a specimen of the plant some thirty years before. From this circumstance 

 the Periwinkle, in France, came to be the emblem of the pleasures of memory 

 and sincere friendship. 



