GARDEN NOMENCLATURE. 



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GARDEN NOMENCLATURE. 

 By G. W. BuLMAN, M.A., B.Sc. 

 [Lecture given on March C, 1906.] 



s 



Gardening has many aspects, all of them interesting. Usually, however, 

 it is regarded from two points of view only, viz. as a means of profit, or 

 as a recreation. The garden as a study has been somewhat neglected. 

 And yet, as it is one of the most delightful places for study, so also it may 

 be one of the most profitable and fruitful in results. 



Gardening, for example, offers unique opportunities for the study of 

 natural history. Every gardener should be a naturalist, and every 

 naturalist should have a garden as a part of his laboratory for practical 

 work. 



A garden, again, offers the best materials for a study of the problem 

 of variation in plants and the modifications which can be produced by 

 careful selection. 



When the French writer Alphonse Karr bid farewell to his friend who 

 was about to travel, he said, " You are going to make a tour round 

 the world ; I am going to make a journey round my garden." The 

 result of this journey was a fascinating book which well illustrates the 

 use of the garden as a study. 



Again, we may make our garden an interesting study in geography. 

 Our bed of dahlias, for example, carries us in imagination to the sandy 

 plains of Mexico, where Humboldt first discovered them ; geraniums and 

 heaths carry our thoughts to the Cape, where they form so dominant a 

 feature in the vegetation ; jasmine and camellia suggest the Land of the 

 Pigtail and the Islands of the Rising Sun. But the special aspect of 

 garden study to which I wish to direct attention this afternoon is that 

 of plant names. It is a wide subject which seems to grow as you work 

 at it. I have also found it a very interesting one, and I hope to be able to 

 communicate a little, at any rate, of that interest to you. 



The names used by the gardener seem sometimes to have been chosen 

 in a spirit of perverseness. The so-called Syringa, the sweet-scented 

 mock-orange blossom, is no relation to the real Syringa, being the 

 Philadelphus of botanists. The true Syringa is the lilac belonging to 

 a very different order, that of the Olives. The species commonly grown 

 are Syringa vulgaris and Syringa xiersica. 



And neither of the laurels usually grown in gardens can claim to be 

 the real laurel. They are, in fact, both species of cherry, and belong to 

 the order RosacecB. The one, the cherry laurel, is Cerasus laiirocerasus ; 

 and the other, the Portugal laurel, is Cerasics lusitanica. The true 

 laurel, Laurus nobilis, is the bay tree, the type of an order — the Laurel 

 order — which contains also the camphor tree and the cinnamon tree. 



The familiar and much grown Nasturtium, or Indian cress, a member 

 of the Geranium family, has borrowed the name of the watercress, which 



