TEE BROWALLIA. 103 



the pentstemon, and the mimulus, with many more 

 garden favourites that to the casual eye have but few 

 traces of a family likeness. 



The Browallia was so named by Linna?us in remem- 

 brance of J. Browallius, Bishop of Abo, which was for- 

 merly the seat of government in Swedish Finland, and still 

 is the seat of a Lutheran archbishopric, although now it is 

 a Russian and not a Swedish city, having passed over with 

 the whole of Finland at the peace of Frederickshamm in 

 1809. Finland was a botanical playground to Linnaeus, 

 and its capital Abo was to him the most important, 

 because it was the nearest centre of learning and liberal 

 thought. Commemorative names of plants are in many 

 respects objectionable, but there is something to be said 

 in their favour, and in any case the names that Linnaeus 

 bestowed on plants " tb^ world will not willingly let die." 

 Of one flower in particular may this be said, for the delicate 

 two-flowered Linnaea, the Linncea borealis of the botanist, 

 he named after himself. It is a humble creeping shrub 

 of the cold morasses of the north, producing exquisitely 

 beautiful though unattractive miniature bell-flowers in 

 pairs. The great botanist, remembering his own humble 

 origin, and conscious of a merit that then had not been 

 generally recognised, chose this flower for the emblem of 

 his own career, and described it as " a little northern 

 plant, flowering early, depressed, abject, and long over- 

 looked." It may not be too wide a departure from the 

 course set before us to remark that in those few words 

 we have a great poem, wanting neither verse, nor rhyme, 

 nor music to indicate the pathos that cannot be concealed. 

 Linnaeus was indeed a poet, though he was and is properly 

 ranked among the soldiers of science. 



