42 PLANTS: THEIR NATURAL GROWTH 



character, under the same climatic influences, and in fact under identical conditions throughout, 

 certain plants, like the present or the Blue-bottle, should only spring up where a particular crop, 

 in these cases cereal, is in cultivation. 



The habitat chosen by plants is a matter not beneath the consideration of the ornamentist, 

 partly since a knowledge of it may prevent incongruous grouping in his designs, partly, too, as the 

 knowledge will greatly assist him in his search for natural plants, for, possessing it, he will not 

 waste time in hunting, for instance, on some breezy inland common for Spergularia, a plant found 

 in salt marshes, nor expect to find the Bog Pimpernel on the walls of some crumbling old ruin. 



The great distribution of many species, some, like the Dandelion, being almost cosmopolitan; 

 the narrow area of others, the Linaria Candollei being only met with on the littoral of Brittany, 

 the Scrophularia Pyrenaica in two localities of the Pyrenees, the Wulfenia Carinthiaca in one place 

 in Upper Carinthia ; the abundance of particular species in some localities ; the universality of 

 plants as a whole ; are all points that may very profitably engage the attention and awaken 

 interest ; we can here but indicate them, leaving others to enlarge on them at their pleasure. 



It may be said that much of this is beside the mark, and by no means helpful to a man 

 who is practically engaged in making designs, but this we are by no means willing to admit Our 

 present and pleasant labours are not. intended as an assistance to the man whose only care is to 

 see with how little trouble his work can be got through, but rather as supplying matter for 

 consideration to those whose labours are a matter of interest to them apart from the pecuniary 

 value of their toil ; and we hold that the ideal designer should be not only a culler of plants as 

 raw material for his own ends, but a lover of them from the inherent interest derived from their 

 study ; in fact, the term designer is but in brief the description, in theory, though perhaps too seldom 

 in practice, of a man, who, in addition to a refined taste and sympathy with Nature, adds thereto 

 some considerable knowledge of not merely botany, but also of many other studies, such as 

 anatomy, zoology, and archaeology, and thus possesses the knowledge that is power in this case 

 no less than in most others, while the absence of this familiarity with these special studies is 

 crippling, and persistently felt as a hindrance in actual work. 



PLATE 26, 



" There lives and works 

 A soul in all things, and that soul is God. 

 The beauties of the wilderness are His, 

 That make so gay the solitary place, 

 Where no eye sees them. And the fairer forms, 

 That cultivation glories in, are His. 

 He sets the bright procession on its way, 

 And marshals all the order of the year ; 

 He makes the bounds which winter may not pass. 

 And blunts its pointed fury ; in its case. 

 Russet and rude, folds up the tender germ — 

 Uninjured, with inimitable art : 

 And, ere one flowery season fades and dies. 

 Designs the blooming wonders of the next." — Cowper. 



The Erodium Manescari, the subject of the present plate, though not a native of England, 

 may from time to time be met with in cultivation ; we have, therefore, inserted it in our series, as[ 

 while it may from its beauty be of service to the designer, it is, though a foreign plant, not 

 inacessible to him should he care on seeing our drawing of it to derive still further knowledge by 

 consulting the living plant. As our present work has an artistic rather than a scientific purpose, 

 we have troubled ourselves but little with any questions of botanical classification, hence exogenous 

 and endogenous plants, indigenous species and those of foreign extraction, are found side by side, 

 all claiming an equal right to our regard on the one broad ground of beauty and fitness for 

 ornamental application. 



In the present plant, the large and brilliantly-coloured flowers and the bold character of the 

 foliage, are features that fit it in an especial degree, to art-work. The umbellate inflorescence is a 

 further valuable feature, the radiation of the buds and blossoms from the one spot being a point 

 admirably adapted for decorative treatment ; we have an illustration of this radiant form in our 

 sketch for a diaper (fig. 218). The flowering Rush, Butomus umbellatus, is another plant that 

 though very different in many respects from the present, has the same beautiful character of in- 

 florescence, and the same fitness on that account, for art-treatment. The great natural order known 

 as the Umbelliferce, so termed on account of the species having the flowers in umbels, contains but 

 few plants of a suitable character for the designer, since in many of them the flowers are exceed- 



