20 GARDENS PAST AND PRESENT 



after a few more tests of like kind, from which 

 he emerged equally triumphant, the stiffness began 

 to melt, the heart of the old professor grew sud- 

 denly soft, and a friendship sprang up then and 

 there which only ended with life. In fact, it is 

 recorded in Linnaeus' Diary that Dillenius pressed 

 him to remain with him altogether, and even went 

 so far as to offer to share his salary with him, 

 which, he declared, would suffice for them both. 

 The offer was not accepted, and Linnaeus before 

 his departure slyly took occasion to hope that he 

 had wrought no " confusion " in Oxford, and 

 received a frank apology a generous trait of cha- 

 racter pleasant to keep in mind. We are proud 

 nowadays if we can succeed in growing the little 

 Scandinavian plant Linncea borealis, which recalls 

 the memory of the great botanist, who at least 

 cleared the way for still greater discoveries, even 

 though his own system is now superseded. 



A curious instance of the errors into which even 

 learned people may be entrapped, can still be seen 

 in one of the herbaria of this period preserved at 

 Oxford a leaf of wood anemone with a fungoid 

 growth on its back which caused Dillenius, him- 

 self a special student of cryptogamic botany, to 

 mistake it for a new species of fern ! The 

 fungus is now well known as a common " trencher 

 friend" of the anemone (Puccinea anemones); 

 but a correction in Latin by a later writer 

 appears on the margin of the work to this 

 effect: "This fern is no other than the leaf of 

 Anemone nemorosa decorated on the underside 

 with dots, occasioned by an insect laying its eggs 



