May 20, 1891.] 



Garden and Forest. 



231 



As to the nomenclature there is this to be said : In older 

 countries the people and the flowers lived together long before 

 the botanist appeared, while here the botanists came with the 

 early settlers to an unexplored field, found the new flowers, 

 and named them before the people had become familiarly ac- 

 quainted with them. The state flower of California has been 

 introduced to the children of that commonwealth as the 

 Eschscholtzia before they could spell it, but this does not prove 

 any lack of love or admiration for it on their part. They have 

 a pet name for the flower, too ; and in all the older settled 

 parts of the country wherever a plant or flower is so abundant 

 or useful or obtrusive that there is need to speak of it a name 

 is found at once. The children of New England call the wild 

 Columbine, Meeting-houses, from their shape, no doubt, and 

 with them Viola pedata is the Horse Violet, perhaps from its 

 long face. The Houstonia, which is Bluets in some places, is 

 Innocence in others. In northern New Jersey, the Marsh 

 Marigold of other regions (Caltha palustris) is invariably a 

 Cowslip. Last week children were gathering Dog-tooth 

 Violets by the handful within sight of Trinity Church spire, 

 and when asked the name of the flowers they expressed much 

 surprise that the inquirer had never heard of Yellow-bells. 

 Even Shortia, which hid away from botanists for a hundred 

 years, had a name which was common enough to answer 

 every purpose, and the man who first discovered it in any 

 quantity was told by the dwellers in the mountain hamlet, 

 where it was spreading over acres, that it was nothing but Lit- 

 tle Colt's-foot. Even where botanical names have not been 

 adopted outright as common ones, they have often been 

 changed, just as Pyxidanthera has become Pyxie to all the 

 dwellers among the New Jersey Pines. There are plenty of 

 common names in every locality which have never found 

 their way into the botanies. 



American women wear flowers for adornment more gener- 

 ally than the women of any other country. This of itself is 

 proof of the genuineness of their love for flowers. It is absurd 

 to imagine that a custom so universal is based on any sham 

 or passingfashion. The desire for display is prevalent enough, 

 beyond question, but if anyone doubts whether the admiration 

 for flowers is an acquired taste — because it is fashionable to 

 wear them — let him carry a handful of them through a city 

 street among groups of children, where unsophisticated nature 

 will find expression. The keen delight of these little ones, who 

 will always accept such a gift, shows that the affection for 

 flowers is an original instinct, which is as strong in this coun- 

 try as it is anywhere. Fashionable freaks and follies pass 

 away, and flowers would, have their brief day like any other 

 craze if the regard for them was artificial or fictitious. The 

 flower-dealers of the country need have no apprehension as to 

 the future of their industry. It is based on one of the elemen- 

 tary wants of our nature. Flowers will be loved until the con- 

 stitution of the human mind is radically changed. 



A California Rose-bush. 



THE illustration which appears on page 233 will convey to 

 those of our readers who are unfamiliar with southern 

 California a better idea of the possibilities of horticulture in 

 that favored region than any description of a California garden 

 could give. It is made from a photograph of the cottage oc- 

 cupied by Mrs. S.C. Barclay, in Los Angeles. The Rose-bush, 

 which covers the front of the cottage, is only twelve years old, 

 and its size and vigor show what rose-growing may become 

 in California in the hands of an intelligent and careful culti- 

 vator. This particular plant is the old-fashioned Noisette 

 Rose, Lamarque, a variety which thirty or forty years ago was 

 the most popular greenhouse climbing plant in our northern 

 states, and which is still occasionally found in old-fashioned 

 gardens, both at the north and in the south. 



The Lamarque is a rampant grower, with abundant hand- 

 some foliage, and in early spring produces a great crop of 

 large clusters of double, white or slightly yellow, fragrant flow- 

 ers. There are not many double Roses that are more beautiful, 

 and not many plants that are more prolific, and the Lamarque, 

 like several other old-fashioned and now neglected Roses, 

 might be well restored to popular favor. The fact that it pro- 

 duces only one full crop of flowers in the year is one reason, 

 no doubt, why it has had to give way to plants which flower 

 with more or less regularity every month. None of the newer 

 Roses, however, grow so vigorously or are more reliable, and 

 to cover the rafters of a large conservatory at the north or to 

 climb through the trees or over the verandas of a southern 

 garden, no Rose which has yet been produced surpasses or 

 quite equals this old-fashioned favorite. 



How We Renewed an Old Place. 



VI. — THE WRECK OF AN ANCIENT GARDEN. 



\1 fHEN the Swiss Family Robinson went ashore on their 

 * * desert island they found all they needed to make them 

 comfortable, on the wreck, from which, luckily, they were 

 able to help themselves before the old hulk went to pieces. 

 After that, every little thing which was quite indispensable 

 came out of a wonderful bag that belonged to the worthy 

 mother. 



Since we landed upon the barren waste of this abandoned 

 farm we have often had reason to compare the old house-lot 

 with the ship, and the front yard with the mother's bag, for a 

 number of trees and shrubs have been forthcoming from the 

 one, while the other has proved an inexhaustible resource, 

 not only for our own, but other people's gardens. 



For, once upon a time, in the old house which is now no 

 more, there dwelt two dear old ladies who took great pride in 

 their garden, and stocked it well with all the best flowers of 

 their day, and from it came bulbs and cuttings of roses, and 

 roots of perennials, that still help to make beautiful the ancient 

 gardens of this fine old town. They were women of refine- 

 ment and learning, much respected and beloved, and the 

 older people still warmly recall Miss Peggy and Miss Betsy, 

 and the days when the old house was always a sunny and 

 cheerful resort. After the place was abandoned and unoccu- 

 pied for many years, people felt at liberty to come, and help 

 themselves to slips of the shrubs and to roots of the old plants, 

 so that one might hardly hope to find anything of value still 

 existing there ; but when we came to clear away the rubbish, 

 we were surprised to find what a tenacious hold the occupants 

 had of the soil, so that, as the spring and summer months 

 sped by, we were constantly surprised and charmed to find, 

 in unexpected places, some shrub or flower that clung to 

 its old haunts, and, half-hidden from the eye, bloomed away 

 its sweet life needless of observers. 



Along an uneven old wall that had supported the terrace of 

 the house, I had a bed dug, into which I transplanted such 

 bulbs and roots as would consent to be torn from their 

 original homes. This bed I call Miss Betsy's Garden, for I 

 am quite sure that in old times that gentle soul must have 

 watched and tended her favorites by this same sunny wall. 

 There is one prim little Columbine which wears a minutely 

 fluted lavender cap that I associate with her, and always call 

 by her name. The flowers that come up in Miss Betsy's Gar- 

 den are all simple and homely, but to me their quaint familiar 

 faces are more appealing than the far showier and splendid 

 blooms of to-day. 



They must have family records of interest, these lady-like 

 old blossoms. Those yellow Daffodils, with their long green 

 ribbons, have nestled up against that wall till, no doubt, they 

 regard it as an ancient castle, of which they are the chate- 

 laines ; and I am sure that dignified Narcissus must have a 

 history. There is a sweet June Honeysuckle straggling there 

 which breathes an old-time fragrance, and the tiny petals of 

 the pale pink Bridal Rose which flutters beside it have the 

 very tint of soft color one sees in the cheek of an ancient 

 maiden. A wild Clematis seems to grow out of the wall itself. 

 I have never been able to find its root, and every fall a Prince's 

 Feather waves its tall plume where once it danced with a 

 Lady's-slipper. The Pansies have all degenerated into Lady's 

 Delights, and the Hollyhocks come up single, but here they 

 grow and blossom beside a pendulous Forsythia, the seed of 

 which was, no doubt, sown by some passing bird, for it is not, 

 I think, one of the older shrubs in this village. 



The rest of the garden is perfectly formless and wild. Noth- 

 ing has been done to the old part of the farm, except to clean 

 away the weeds and sticks that encumbered it, and the old plants 

 have grown lank and tall along the fence and under the 

 heavy shade of the trees. But here in the spring the ground 

 is blue and fragrant with hardy English Violets that fill the 

 air with perfume and blossom long before even the native 

 White Violet, which leads the way among our New England 

 flowers ; and wherever you walk you come upon a Tulip, or 

 a Star of Bethlehem, or a feeble Crocus choked by the strong 

 grasses, and other Daffys are wagging their golden heads in 

 sheltered spo'ts, and later there are to be seen more sculptur- 

 esque Narcissus shining whitely under the shrubbery, " like 

 good deeds in a naughty world." The Flowering Almond 

 sends up spikes of bloom ; the Periwinkle, white and blue, 

 hides among its shining leaves, while the Moneywort has 

 strayed away from the garden and made of itself a nuisance 

 in the orchard, where it threatens to root out everything else. 

 There also are great clumps of the giant Solomon's Seal in 

 shady nooks, where they grow to wondrous size. 



