THE GARDEN AND ITS DEVELOPMENT, 411 



ened: in some the zeal for collection was excited, until such individual 

 fancies, as often happens, came to l)e fashiona))le. 



The Medici hei-e also led the way. Though the contemporary writers 

 of the fifteenth century boasted concerning- the garden of the Careggi, 

 near Florence — a pleasure villa still in existence— that it contained nearly 

 all the known species of plants, we should probably not accept too 

 implicitly the diversity of its contents. It was not until 1560 that 

 there was collected in Europe the plant material that constitutes 

 to-day the ordinary ])asis of our most modest gardens. This immi- 

 gration occurred at several different periods and from several different 

 countries. 



The first and perhaps the most remarkable importation of flower- 

 ing plants into European gardens occurred from ISfiO to 1020, through 

 the efforts of the Austrian monarchy. From Asia Minor and the Bal- 

 kan peninsula there now came for the first time — together with lilacs, 

 horse-chestnuts, and jasmines — carnations, and oriental Ijulbs, crown 

 imperials, hyacinths, lilies, tulips, and narcissus, which, through the 

 Hapsburgs, were also carried to the Netherlands, where a regular tulip 

 mania ensued, and this gave the first impulse to Dutch painting, espe- 

 cially to that of flowers. In France, under Henry IV and Louis XIII, 

 the fashion for the new splendid flowers became potent, so that they 

 were used for embroidery and fabrics of silk damask. The Jardin du 

 Roi in Paris, now the Jardin des Plantes, founded in 1626, gave its 

 samples of these to the provincial gardens founded especiall}^ for the 

 artistic handicrafts. 



At the same time there were imported into Europe through the 

 Spaniards the first plants of the New World, especially from Peru. 

 Together with tobacco, the potato, and the sunflower were brought in 

 the fig cactus and the Agave aniericana, commonly called the aloe, 

 both of w^hich l)ecomiug completely wild in Spain spread from thence 

 throughout all the Mediterranean countries, and have there finally 

 become the characteristic plants of the landscape. Somewhat later the 

 North American plants invaded Europe e7i ma^se. Those that came 

 from Canada were brought over })y the French, among them the wild 

 grape (1686). England, on her side, imported the plants of Virginia, 

 including the magnolias of older times. As possessors of lands at the 

 Cape of Good Hope the Dutch brought into Europe, from 1680 to 1700, 

 pelai'goniums and succulent plants; later, also, heaths — all those forms 

 which to-day are cultivated in special houses — cape houses. The 

 introduction of so many plants from lands having usually a nnich 

 warmer climate compelled European gardens to create conditions of 

 life suital)le to the newcomers. The botanical garden at Leyden 

 appears to have been the first to erect, in 1599, a glass house for plants 

 as a necessary protection against the winter's cold. This, however, did 



