British Wild Flowers and Trees 213 



are plants of much beauty. Even for the sake of 

 plants for lakes, rivers, ponds in parks, pleasure 

 grounds, or gardens, the subject is worthy attention. 

 For the rock-garden, too, many of our wild flowers 

 are fitted. In any part of the country where the 

 soil or surface of the ground suits the habits of 

 a variety of native plants, it would prove interesting 

 to collect kinds not found in the neighbourhood, and 

 naturalize them therein ; and wherever the natural rock 

 crops up, much beauty may be added by planting these 

 rocky spots with wild mountain flowers. 



' Botany,' says Emerson, ' is all names, not powers ; ' 

 to press and dry wild plants is necessary for botanists, 

 but it is not likely to cause any wide human interest in 

 such things ; and therefore I propose that we look 

 through our British wild flowers with a view of giving 

 some of them a home in the garden. It will be well 

 to have a complete list of our wild flowers, which 

 would be found in the index to Syme's, Bentham's, 

 Babington's, or any other good book on our flora ; 

 but best is a list called the ' London Catalogue of 

 British Plants,' which was published by Pamplin of 

 Soho, and is now published by Bell in Covent Garden. 

 This gives a full list of all the species, and by means 

 of numbers indicates their distribution. The compilers 

 adopted Mr. Hewett Watson's division of Britain into 

 a number of botanical districts, and after the name 

 of each species a number is placed, which tells the 

 number of districts in which that particular plant is found. 



