In My Vicarage Garden 



but modern science does not admit this, and Lin- 

 naeus pointed out how erroneous it is to attempt 

 to separate species by their odours from the 

 famiHar example that a dog will pick out his 

 own master in a crowd of other men, not by- 

 sight but by smell, and so his canon was, " Odor 

 speciem nunquam clare distinguit." Yet, in his 

 love of classification, he classified the scents of 

 flowers, and divided them into six classes — (i) 

 Ambrosiaca, such as musk, sweet-scented ger- 

 anium, etc. ; (2) Fragrantia, such as the flowers 

 of pinks, jasmine, violets, etc., and the leaves of 

 lavender, thyme, balm, etc. ; (3) Aromatica (similar 

 in taste and smell), such as cinnamon, camphor, 

 orange, etc. ; (4) Graveolentid, subdivided into 

 Alliacea, such as onions, garlick, asafoetida, etc., 

 and Hircina, such as herb Robert and others ; 

 (5) Tetra, such as hemp and elder; and (6) 

 Nauseosa, producing sickness, such as veratrum, 

 colocynth, and tobacco (!) This is a curious ar- 

 rangement of flower-scents, and it is open to the 

 objection that the same scents are very different 

 to different people, so that scents which would 

 range themselves to some under tetra or nauseosa 

 would be ranged by others under fragrantia or 

 aromatica. 



There are many curiosities connected with the 

 scent of flowers, but there is none more remark- 

 able than the way in which different persons are 

 affected by them. In some the sense is entirely 

 wanting, as in Dean Stanley, but in others who 

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