96 BARBAEOUS PLANT NAMES 



name given to a nearly allied lily- wort Watsonial 

 Commemorative names are seldom pleasant to use till 

 all has been forgotten about those whom they com- 

 memorate, as Fuchsia and Dahlia; though exception 

 may be made for the pardonable fervour which, while 

 it inspired our countrymen to name the greatest of 

 conifers Wellingtonia, has induced American botanists 

 to class it as Washingtonia. But, after all, the best 

 names, even for scientific precision, are those invented 

 by the poets, as Anemone, the wind-flower, Agapanthus, 

 the love-blossom, and the like. 



With the fleeting names that gardeners choose to 

 give florist's flowers there is no cause for quarrel. 

 These may be dismissed as lightly as flowers of this 

 sort were dismissed by Perdita : 



' Carnations and streaked gilliflowers, 

 Which some call nature's bastards ; of that kind 

 Our rustick garden 's barren, and I care not 



To get slips of them 



I '11 not put 



The dibble in the earth to set one slip of them ; 

 No more than, were I painted, I would wish 

 This youth should say 'twere well ; and only therefore 

 Desire to breed by me.' 



It matters not though a rose should come to be 

 named Dr. Tanner, or a pseony Tim Healy, even as 

 a rhododendron has already been ticketed W. E. 

 Gladstone. 



Yet there lies a fine old-world light upon some 

 names in the florist's catalogues, reflected from the 

 days when men paid a knight's ransom for a single 



