CHAPTER XII 



PLANT NAMES 



"The fascination of plant names is founded on two instincts, — 

 love of Nature and curiosity about Language." 



— English Plant Names,, Rev. John Earle, 1880. 



ERBAL magic is the subtle mys- 

 terious power of certain words. 

 This power may come from asso- 

 ciation with the senses ; thus I 

 have distinct sense of stimulation 

 in the word scarlet, and pleasure 

 in the words lucid and liquid. 

 The word garden is a never ceasing delight ; it seems 

 to me Oriental ; perhaps I have a transmitted sense 

 from my grandmother Eve of the Garden of Eden. 

 I like the words, a Garden of Olives, a Garden of 

 Herbs, the Garden of the Gods, a Garden enclosed, 

 Philosophers of the Garden, the Garden of the Lord. 

 As I have written on gardens, and thought on gar- 

 dens, and walked in gardens, " the very music of 

 the name has gone into my being." How beautiful 

 are Cardinal Newman's words : — 



" By a garden is meant mystically a place of spiritual 

 repose, stillness, peace, refreshment, delight." 



There was, in Gerarde's day, no fixed botanical 

 nomenclature of any of the parts or attributes of a 



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