In My Vicarage Garden 



Passion. One extreme instance will show that 

 even in our own times a name may be given which 

 in time to come will perpetuate the history of a 

 savage custom now happily passed away. In the 

 Fiji Islands there grows a solanuvi (very like our 

 tomato) which has obtained the ghastly name of 

 solanum anthropophagum. As long as the name 

 lasts it will tell the story that the Fijians were 

 once cannibals, and grew this vegetable specially 

 for their cannibal feasts, human flesh being, 

 according to the reports of Dr Leeman and 

 Professor Moseley, very unwholesome unless eaten 

 with certain vegetables, grown for the purpose, of 

 which the solanum was in most request. The 

 Fijians are no longer cannibals, but that they 

 were so once will always be told by this plant. 



I would then recommend to all lovers of a 

 garden to learn all they can of the scientific 

 names of their favourites, just as I would recom- 

 mend them to learn all they can of their structure, 

 their botanical affinities, and their geography, for 

 the simple reason that the more they learn the 

 more they will wish to learn, and the more they 

 will find to study with loving admiration. But it 

 does not follow from this that I think lightly of 

 the common English names of our plants. Our 

 old English names are full of a special charm, 

 and I have always delighted not only to trace 

 them through our literature, but to preserve them 

 in every possible way, and to use them in pre- 

 ference to any others. They will make for any 

 104 



