30 PLANTS: THEIR NATURAL GROWTH 



situation it may be found attaining a height of eighteen inches or so, generally when in rather 

 damp meadows : while, on our open, breezy downs, it rarely reaches a height the third of that, and is 

 dwarfed in every way, the flowers being at once individually smaller and collectively less numerous. 

 Like many other purple flowers its blossoms are occasionally of a pure white; but a greater 

 peculiarity, and one almost its own, is that on the same plant both purple and white bells may at 

 times be found. The plant represented in our plate is an exceptionally fine specimen, the blossoms 

 are ordinarily about three quarters of an inch long, in a fairly good example. The upper leaves 

 are sessile, the lower ones stalked. 



All the species of Campanula are well adapted to art work, and will repay attention. The 

 Hairbell, or Harebell, known botanically as the C. rotundifolia, from the roundness of its lower 

 leaves, is a very graceful plant. It is in Catholic countries dedicated to St. Dominic ; it is also 

 claimed as the " Blue-bell" of Scotland, though its claims to this poetic distinction have been 

 disputed, apparently without much justice, in favour of the wild Hyacinth. It is a plant eminently 

 adapted for light and delicate work. Of the; other species, the C rapunculoides, C. Rapunculus, 

 and C. hederacea are especially worthy of the ornamentist's regard. 



The generic name. Campanula, is derived from the Latin, and signifies a little bell ; it has, 

 therefore, the same force of meaning as the familiar English name, while the specific name, 

 glomerata, signifies rolled together in a mass like a ball, and is applied botanically to this plant 

 from the dense terminal head of flowers so distinctive of this species ; the common name of the 

 plant, the Clustered Bell-flower, is, therefore, almost a literal translation of the botanical appel- 

 lation. The two designs, figs, 146, 147, are attempts on our part to emphasise this clustering 

 together of the bells of this beautiful wild-flower. 



The significance of plant names will be found a matter not altogether without interest, as 

 there is often a very considerable depth of meaning, on analysis, in a word that from constant use 

 has grown too familiar to us to lead to any thought on the matter. Into the many sections into 

 which this subject may be divided— -names given from poetical association, ex. Pansy ; names 

 given from the locality the plant is found in, ex. Cheddar Pink ; names given in allusion to the 

 situation in which the plant is found, ex. Stonecrop ; names given from season of flowering, ex. 

 Lent Lily ; names derived from religious or legendary association, ex. St. John's Wort ; names 

 based on economic uses, ex. Broom ; nanies given from the medicinal service, ex. Wormwood — 

 it is not here desirable to enter upon at any length ; but the class of names given to plants in 

 recognition of their resemblance to sotne other objects is suggested to us by the example 

 afforded by the subject of our plate. This class, appealing, as it does, both to the faculty of 

 observation and the influence of the superstitious, no less than to the love of the marvellous and 

 strange, is in every country largely developed ; and the same turn of mind which, in the Middle 

 Ages, found so many objects of Nature to justify the doctrine of signatures, was no less alive to 

 these accidental resemblariges. Many, therefore, are obvious enough to justify their names, while 

 others do not so fully bear out the somewhat forced analysis which has been sought out. In 

 these cases, as in the other examples derived from the various sources that we have indicated above, 

 many of the names yet preserve their meaning intact, and are as clearly to be understood now 

 as at any past tirne : while others, from change of dialect or custom, do not so readily commend 

 themselves to our understanding. In this latter subdivision we would merely instance the Oak, 

 Hazel, Columbine, and Garlic ; for, though a list ten times as long might easily be added to these, 

 our desire is rather to make the subject suggestive than exhaustive. The Oak was by the Anglo- 

 Saxon called ac, by the Sweeds ek, and by the Danes eg ; all these names are etymologically iden- 

 tical with &gg, and refer to the egg-shaped acorns. The Oak, like many other objects, derived its 

 name from its product of greatest value, and though now we should certainly point to the timber 

 as being the most commercially valuable, we must bear in mind that the Oak, being a common 

 indigenous tree, received a name when wealth lay rather in the possession of numerous herds of 

 swine, and when the fruit of the Oak, rather than the wood, rendered the greater service. The 

 Hazel-nut derives its name from the Anglo-Saxon word hasd, a cap, and knutu, a nut : the re- 

 ference being to the large scales of the involucre, the green and somewhat leaf-like cap within 

 which we see the nut itself Columbine is derived from the Latin word columba, a dove : another 

 English word for the plant being Culver- wort, from the Anglo-Saxon culfre, a pigeon ; and both 

 these names indicating the strong resemblance of the ring of spurred petals to a group of little 

 pigeons— (see fig. 300). Garlic, from the Anglo-Saxon words gar, a spear, and leac, a plant, is so 

 called from its acute and spear-like leaves ; though it is only right to mention that another deriva- 

 tion, which has been suggested, is based on the Gaelic word garg, pungent, and luigh, a plant. 

 More familiar examples may be seen in the Lantern plant (fig. 30), the Buttercup (fig. 139) the 

 Tulip tree (fig 170), the Rattle (fig. 233), the Foxglove (fig. 286), and in the scientific" names of 

 the Aster, from its star-like form (fig. 296), and the Violet comuta, from its spur resembling a 



