40 ON THE CULTIVATION OF THE NEAPOLITAN VIOLET. 



false notion of his acquirement when he finds himself the sole pos- 

 sessor of this useless stock of ' Aristophanic compounds and insuffer- 

 able misnomers.' 



" Crabbe has admirably ridiculed this botanical pedantry : — 



' High-sounding words our worthy gard'ner gets, 

 And at his club to wondering swains repeats ; 

 He there of Rhus and Rhododendron speaks, 

 And Allium calls his onions and his leeks ; 

 Nor weeds are now; from whence arose the weed 

 Scarce plants, fair herbs, and curious flowers proceed 

 Where Cuckoo-pints and Dandelions sprung 

 (Gross names had they our plainer sires among), 

 There Arums, there Leontodons we view, 

 And Artemisia grows where Wormwood grew.' 



" To make confusion worse confounded, our botanists are not satisfied 

 with their far-fetched names ; they must ever be changing them too. 

 Thus it is a mark of ignorance in the world of flowers to call our old 

 friend Geranium otherwise than Pelargonium ; the Glycine (G. 

 Sinensis), the well-known specimen of which, at theChiswick gardens, 

 produced more than 9000 of its beautiful lilac, laburnum-like 

 racemes from a single stem, is now to be called Wistaria ; the new 

 Californian annual Oenothera is already Godetia ; while the pretty 

 little red Hemimeris, once a Celsia, is now, its third designation, an 

 Alonsoa; and our list is by no means exhausted. Going on at this 

 rate, a man might spend the mom of his life in arriving at the pre- 

 sent state of botanical science, and the. rest of Ids life in running after 

 its novelties and changes. We are only too glad when public sanction 

 triumphs over individual whim ; and, as in the cases of Georgina for 

 Dahlia, and Chryesis for Eschscholtzia, resist the attempted change." 



Felton, October 19, 1842. 



ARTICLE IX. 



ON THE CULTIVATION OF THE NEAPOLITAN VIOLET. 



BY LOUISA. 



As these plants are such general favourites, especially with the ladies, 

 and their flowering so well with me in winter excites surprise in some 

 persons, the following simple mode of management may not be un- 

 acceptable. In the spring, about April or May, the old plants are 

 divided, and the runners, &c, put into small pots, with some leaf- 



