THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 



13 



presented by a valued friend. Of the second kind are plants 

 whose associations are generic, like the dafifodil and the Eng- 

 lish daisy with all their wealth of poetic allusion from Chaucer 

 down; or the stately hemp plant whose fibre supplied cordage 

 to the argosies of ancient Rome and Tyre, and whose narcotic 

 juice was the basis of the hashish brew with which the Old Man 

 of the Mountain enslaved his Assassins. Many plants have a 

 really extensive literature, and one who has never looked into 

 the matter will be surprised to find how romantic a role even 

 such homely subjects as the onion or the common parsley have 

 played in the drama of man's development. Works like De 

 CandoUe's "Origin of Cultivated Plants," Britten and Hol- 

 land's ''Dictionary of Plant Names," Prior's "Popular Names 

 of British Plants," and Thistleton Dyer's "The Folk Lore of 

 Plants" — to mention a few among many — are excellent intro- 

 ductions to the recorded history of numerous perennials which 

 either are garden favorites already, or might well be. 



To put the matter in a concrete way I may cite a little 

 garden I know which embodies the general idea here touched 

 upon. It is in Southern California — a region where soil and 

 climate are, to be sure, exceptionally hospitable to introduced 

 plants — ^but the plan of it, mutatis mutandis, may readily be 

 followed in almost any part of our country. Here along with 

 the conventional oranges and roses, a thrifty young- carob-tree 

 is growing — the Syrian "St. John's Bread," whose brown, 

 bean-like pods are at times seen on our fruiter's stalls, and the 

 husks of which were doubtless the fare of the Prodigal Son of 

 the Scripture narrative. Here, too, is an Italian stone-pine 

 raised from seed sent by a friend from the famous grove of 

 Ravenna associated with Dante; and companioning it, one of 

 our own nut-pines or pinons, interesting as long a principal 

 source of food to the vanishing aborigines of our Southwest. 

 There is also' the wild shrub Cowania, or Mexican clifY rose, 

 cherished as an individual because raised from seed gathered 



