26* JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



is the true Nasturtium, and of the order Cruciferce. The " crocus purple 

 hour" of spring is repeated in autumn, when the leafless blossoms of the 

 autumn crocus burst through the soil. But the autumn crocus is not a 

 crocus at all, but a Colchicum, from certain species of which the famous 

 gout medicine is prepared. It has been said — but I will not vouch for the 

 truth of it — that the mole is familiar with this gout remedy, and that 

 when a too assiduous attendance at its subterranean Diet of Worms brings 

 on painful symptoms it runs a tunnel to the nearest bed of Colchicum. 



Perhaps the most curiously named of garden plants is the Jerusalem 

 artichoke, which is not an artichoke, nor did it come from Jerusalem. 

 For this familiar vegetable is botanically Helianthus tuberosus, the 

 tuberous-rooted sunflower. The real artichoke, the globe artichoke, is a 

 sort of thistle, the plant of which Alfred de Musset wrote in his " Fantasia," 

 " Thistles leave the ass's jaws to be flooded with sauce in the Bishop's 

 silver dish . . . the thistle may become an artichoke." When the 

 Jerusalem artichoke flowers, as it has occasionally done in this country, 

 it proves its title to be called a sunflower. It is said to come from North 

 America, where it was cultivated by the Indians before the settlement of 

 the country by Europeans. The French settlers called the tuber pommes 

 de Canada. In Italy the plant is known as Girasole Articocco, that is, 

 sunflower artichoke, and the Jerusalem of the English name is said to 

 be a corruption of Girasole. A writer in the " Quarterly Eeview," however, 

 attributes this solution to a clever guesser, and declares that the Italians 

 did not call it Girasole. The word " Jerusalem," he points out, presents no 

 difficulty, for many plants have been so called which did not come from 

 Jerusalem. The name was given as a mark of honour, or as an indication 

 of the exotic character of the plant. Nor is the Japanese artichoke an 

 artichoke from the botanical point of view, though it is rightly named 

 Japanese. It is a species of woundwort with tuberous roots, Stachys 

 tuberosus, and is called an artichoke from the similarity in flavour. 



The plane tree, or sycamore, is one of the most curiously named 

 of plants. For the true plane tree, or Platanus, belongs to the great 

 catkin- bearing family, while the sycamore belongs to the Maple group. 

 Botanists note this by calling it Acer pseudo-plataiius. The only ex<;use 

 for calling it the plane is the somewhat similar broad leaves. Nor has it 

 any better right to the name sycamore, which means mulberry fig, and is 

 the proper name of the Ficus Sycamorus, the sycamore tree of Scripture. 



Botanists, again, have had to reproach the so-called Acacia of our 

 gardens with the same word " pseudo," and name it Robinia pseudo-acacia. 

 Its flowers, however, being irregular and papilionaceous, resembling those 

 of the Laburnum, are very different from those of the true Acacia, which 

 are regular, and resembling those of the Mimosa or sensitive plant. 

 Eobinia is also sometimes grown under the name of the locust tree, to 

 which it has no more right than to that of Acacia. The real locust tree, 

 or St. John's bread, is the carob tree, Ceratonia Siliqua. 



The winter aconite of the gardener, the earliest flower of the year, is 

 not the aconite. Monkshood, with its tall spikes of blue flowers, is the real 

 aconite, and source of the well-known poison. Its more familiar name 

 monkshood, or friar's cap, may serve to remind us that in olden times 

 the monks were the physicians and gardeners of their age. In their 



