140 MAY 



darling should have been allowed to filch the name 

 ' heartsease,' which the wallflower had already earned 

 in virtue of its cordial properties, and imported into 

 it some of that amatory allusion in which the profli- 

 gate pansy is so deeply involved. 



But from the earliest times lovers have been in- 

 corrigible in appropriating blossoms to their own 

 purposes, though some of the resulting names have 

 been the consequence of blunders. For instance, it 

 is hardly likely that any swain would choose the 

 coarse annual called love-lies-bleeding to express his 

 pain ; there has been some confusion here between the 

 classical amaranthus and amor. So also the Solanum 

 lycopersicum, named pomi dei Mori or Saracen apples 

 by Italian gardeners, was glossed pommes d'amour 

 by the French, and love-apples by our own people, 

 till these borrowed the American name 'tomato.' 

 The straggling goose-grass, too, clinging with its 

 myriad burrs to the coats of men, derives its popular 

 name, loveman, from that habit, and not from any 

 amatory suggestion. 



School Boards and other engines of mealy-mouthed- 

 ness have laid their ban on many venerable plant- 

 names, and it must be owned that the true meaning 

 of wake-robin and cuckoo-pint is best exchanged for 



