126 



SCIENCE OF GARDENING. 



Part II. 



42 



Deciduous tree. 



Evergreen tree. 



Deciduous spiry-topt tree. 



Evergr. spiry-topt tree. 



Deciduous shrub. 



ML Evergreen shrub 



jj,. Twining shrub. 



*L- Climbing shrub. 



>SB ^ Trailing shrub. 



itr^ff Creeping shrub. 



JU33. Under-shrub. 



#^ Perennial grass. 



i 



T\ Twining perennial. 



i 



Sk Climbing perennial. 



Sb&i Trailing perennial. 



.,^3 Creeping perennial. 



A Bulbous perennial. 



^U Tuberous perennial. 



~~r> Fusiform perennial. 



'ii. Annual. 



_ Annual grass. 



C / ScUaminous plant, 



yg^- Agnatic. 



/$ Parasite. 



\^ Succulent. 



I I Bark-stove. 



L Dry-stove. 



| fliifw >imw 



> Frame. 



Iffil BarA: */oi'e deciduous tree. 



IS2 Dnj.stove deciduous shrub. 



EBZ Green-house aquatic. 



1&. Frame shrub. 



Sect. V. Descriptions of Plants. 



575. Plants are described by the use of language alone, or 

 by language and figures, models, or dried plants conjoined. The 

 description of plants may be either abridged or complete. The 

 shortest mode of abridgment is that employed in botanical 

 catalogues, as in those of Donn or of Sweet. A complete 

 description, according to Decandolle, ought to proceed in the 

 following order : 



1. The admitted name. 



2. The characteristic phrase. 



3. The synonyms. 



4. The description, comprehending the 

 organs, beginning with the root. 



5. The history, that is, the country, du- 



ration, station, habitual time of foliation and 

 exfoliation, of flowering, and of ripening the 

 seed. 



6. Application, which includes the cul- 

 ture and uses. 



7. Critical or incidental observations. 



576. Descriptions are, in general, written in Latin, the names 

 in the nominative, and followed by epithets which mark their 

 modifications, and which are not united by a verb, unless that 

 becomes necessary to explain any circumstance which is not 

 provided for in the ordinary form of the terms. Doubts as 

 to the received ideas on the plant described, or any other mis- 

 cellaneous matters, are to be placed under the last article. 



577. Collections of botanical descriptions may be of different 

 sorts, as 



1. Monographs, or descriptions of one 

 genus, tribe, or class, as Lmdley's Mono- 

 grapma Rosanon. 



8. Floras, or an enumeration of the plants 

 of any one district or country, as Smith's 

 Flora Britannica. 



3. Gardens, or an enumeration, descrip- 

 tive or nominal, of the plants cultivated 

 in any one garden, as Alton's Hortus 

 Kewensis. 



4. General rvorks, in which all known 



plants are described, as Willdenow's Species 

 Plantarum, and Persoon's S<;jv>p*is Plant- 

 arum. 



All these classes of books may be with or 

 without plates or figures ; and these again, 

 may be of part or of the whole plant, and 

 colored or plain, &c. Some botanists have 

 substituted dried specimens for figures, which 

 is approved of in cases of difficult tribes or 

 genera ; as in the grasses, ferns, geraniums, 

 ericas, &c. 



578. Collections of descriptions of plants in what are called 

 gardens or catalogues, form one of the most useful kinds of 

 botanical books for the practical gardener. The most complete 

 of these hitherto published is the Hortus Suburbanus Londinensis 

 of R. Sweet ; but this, as well as all other works of the kind, 

 admit of being rendered much more descriptive by a more ex- 

 tensive use of abbreviated terms, and even by the use of picto- 

 rial signs. ( fig. 42.) Sweet's Hortus gives the Linna?an and 

 natural class and order, systematic and English name, authority, 

 habitation in the garden, time of flowering, year, of introduction, 

 and reference to engraved figures ; but there might be added 

 on the same page, the height of the plant, color of the flower, 

 time of ripening the seed or fruit, soil, mode of propagation, 

 and the natural habitation of such as are natives. Instead 

 of the usual mark ( Vi ) for a ligneous plant, pictorial types 

 might be introduced to indicate whether it was a tree or shrub, 

 deciduous or ever-green, spiry topt, a palm, climbing, twining 

 or trailing, &c. ; and instead of the common sign for a per- 

 ennial (4)> biennial ( $ ), or annual (0), something of 

 the natural character of the plant might be similarly indi- 

 cated. A single line of a catalogue formed on this principle 

 would expand into a long paragraph of ideas in the mind of the 

 botanist or gardener, and might easily be rendered a Species 

 Plantarum, by introducing short specific characters in single 

 lines on the page opposite the catalogue lines, as in Galpine's 

 Compendium of the British Flora. It might farther, by sub- 

 joining notes to all the useful or remarkable species at the 

 bottom of every page, be rendered a history of plants, includ- 

 ing their uses in the arts and manufactures, and their culture 

 in agriculture or gardening. Such an Encyclopaedia of Plants, 

 with other improvements, we, with competent assistance, have 

 sometime since commenced, and hope soon to submit to the 

 public. 



