GARDEN ASSOCIATIONS 273 



of the plant or its native locality, or its discoverer. 

 Thus, Winter's bark (Drimys Winteri) will not only 

 recall Admiral Winter's great voyage of discovery 

 round Cape Horn and through the Straits of Magellan, 

 where the shrub was found, but it will also recall some- 

 thing of the history of Cinchona, for which it was long 

 a substitute. But plant names form too fascinating 

 and lengthy a subject to enter on here. 



An endless amount of interest is gathered round the 

 literary history of plants. I like to grow any plant 

 that is mentioned by the old Greek and Latin writers 

 such as Theophrastus, Aristotle, Virgil, or Pliny; 

 and still more do I delight in the plants of English 

 literature. I doubt if any national literature has been 

 so full of flowers as our own, and especially in our 

 poetry. Among the older writers, Gower, Chaucer, 

 Spenser, and Shakespeare, and, indeed, almost all, love 

 to speak of gardens and flowers. The plants named by 

 them are far more than most people are aware of, and 

 a very slight acquaintance with their writings will add 

 much to the pleasure of a garden. And this love of 

 gardens and flowers was not confined to the older 

 poets ; it rather languished in the eighteenth century, 

 but in our day flowers have been fully honoured by 

 our poets. Of course, modern poets have naturally 

 loved the old flowers, but they have not hesitated to 



