180 HISTORICAL NOTES ON 



nopolitan gardens. Of all the above-mentioned flowers, the 

 anemone and narcissus alone can be recognised under those 

 names in the writings of the ancient Romans, for the various 

 hyacinths of Virgil and Pliny were evidently very different from 

 the plant we give that name to. 



The Tuberose (Polyanthes tuberosa) is generally said to be a 

 native of East India, Java, and Ceylon, but it is there everywhere 

 cultivated, as it is also in almost every South American garden, 

 and its origin is very uncertain. Judging from the localities of 

 its nearest allies in the genera Agave and Beschorneria, we should 

 consider some part of the Mexican empire as its most probable 

 fatherland, and that it was carried to Europe and to Asia very 

 early after the conquest of that tei'ritory. It was known to Clusius 

 at Vienna, in 1594. Eumphius tells us that it was introduced 

 into Amboyna, in 1694, from Batavia, where it was very common, 

 meaning probably in gardens there. He also tells us that the 

 Italian ones were the most esteemed in India. Yet in Italy 

 tuberoses were still very scarce in the beginning of the eighteenth 

 century. 



The Jessamine (Jasminum oflBcinale), a native of East India, 

 now as it were naturalised in some parts of Italy, is believed to 

 have passed from East India into Arabia, thence into Egypt, and 

 lastly, in the middle ages, into Italy. It appears to have been 

 unknown to the ancient Greeks and Romans, for the references 

 made to it by some commentators are evidently erroneous. The 

 first mention of it in Italy is in a poem by Rucellai, written about 

 1524, where it is spoken of as a new flower unknown to the 

 ancients. Matthioli, about 1559, also tells us it had not been 

 long imported into Italy, although it was then already common in 

 every garden. The Jasmiunm grandiflormn, a mere variety of 

 the common one and very abundant in India in the wild state, 

 was imported from Spain in the sixteenth century, and the 

 Mugherlno or SamhaJc (Jasminum Sambak), direct from Goa in 

 the seventeenth. 



Carnations (Dianthus caryophyllus) are first recorded as having 

 been cultivated by King Rene of Anjou and Provence, at Aix, in 

 the thirteenth century, but whether there raised or impoi'ted from 

 more southern climates does not appear. The wild type is 

 common in Southern Europe, but with flowers of such very reduced 

 dimensions that we must presume a period of several ages requisite 

 to produce those splendid varieties now in cultivation. 



In the latter half of the sixteenth or in the early years of the 



