26 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS 



CHAPTER II 



m fe>I)rub0, mo0tlg (Etjerffreen 



Mostly, I head this chapter, because in the great ever- 

 green races there occur deciduous species, and vice versa. 

 And it would be jerky and pedantic to keep my reader 

 hopping backwards and forwards from chapter to chapter 

 in order to join up the disconnected ranks of Magnolia 

 or Azalea. Nor will I make apology for using this latter 

 name. It is hard that, where botany swarms with ugly 

 names, hideous, hard, teutonic, latinised Russ and bastard 

 Greek, a name so simple, gracious and euphonious as 

 Azalea should be torn from us, and we be left with no 

 refuge but the lumbering if orotund syllables of Rhodo- 

 dendron. Therefore, since no one can be in doubt what 

 is meant by Azalea, I will continue in the old, superseded 

 ways. If all races were so unmeaningly, so sweetly 

 named, our gardens would be happier, our labels less 

 deforming. But we are at the mercy of chance, it seems, 

 in these matters. It was mere luck that the eponymous 

 hero of the Yulans was able, being a M. Magnol, to 

 supply so appropriate and fragrant a generic name as 

 Magnolia. On such a frail coincidence does the question 

 of nomenclature depend. Suppose the Magnolias were 

 Smithias, Von Borkias, Mulliganias ? And it is mere 

 luck that they aren't. If their discoverer had had his life 

 saved by the Mulligan (of BallymuUigan), and had 

 nourished due gratitude. Heaven knows what might have 



