36 
PARK AND CEMETERY, 
GARDEN PLANTS— THEIR GEOGRAPHY, XVII. 
ROSALES. (B.) 
THE GENISTA, ROSA AND DROSERA ALLIANCE. 
{Continued.) 
The rose-like flowers will be touched upon in 
this paper. The irregular or regular leguminous 
tribes have bean-like pods, or drupaceous fruits 
like Dipterix. The regular flowers of legumales, 
however, are likely to be bean fruited, or the pea 
flowers are occasionally followed by an almond like 
fruit. 
The rose-flowers of this section are regular, 
and their fruit is a follicle — often merely the neck 
of the calyx. The seeds microscopically examined 
differ but little it is true from peas and beans, and 
the Tonquin bean differs scarcely at all from the 
peach. The fleshy coverings are not deemed of 
permanent value, but it may be pointed out that 
raspberries and strawberries are built up of several 
drupes, constituting the fruits, while potentillas 
scarcely at all distinguishable in flower, have dry 
fruits, quite destitute of pulpy covering. 
Such instances briefly sample the grounds upon 
which botanists rely for purposes of identification. 
The trouble seems to be that they seek too far for 
solid understanding, and few better examples occur 
than among the plants of this alliance. Any child can 
distinguish between the normal types of beans and 
roses, and why abnormal forms should be seized 
upon to swell a group of immense proportions, and 
unite it to these equally well marked ones, also of 
great size, is (if not) a mystery, an inconvenience 
in garden arrangement, 
Abnormal forms might hold together very many 
alliances with as much reason. 
But these things are explained upon tons of pa- 
per, with hogsheads of ink, laid on by hundreds of 
steam horses, for the instruction of a few. 
It will be said that the orders offer the desired 
boundary lines, but I am not considering the orders ; 
they have been found wanting as the basis of gar- 
den groups — very wanting indeed, besides ninety- 
and-nine in every hundred of humanity ignore them, 
because they are difficult to remember, loaded with 
endless synonomy, embellished with wonderful 
terminology, and indicate the unattainable. 
Orders are impracticable for ornamental purposes. 
Common people want a half hundred groups of 
plants which can be variously arranged in the gar- 
dens of most climates, and capable of affording a 
synoptical idea of the vegetation of the earth. 
Then perhaps with carefully selected ornamen- 
tal material, and brief descriptive hand-books, they 
could begin to regard exact plant lore with some 
favor. 
As it is I have heard a distinguished scientist 
declare, “I regard botany as no science, but a mass 
of polysyllabic confusion.” 
Botanists have themselves to blame. They are 
fonder by far of airing their vagaries on paper to 
confuse, than of gardenesque beauty and simplicity 
to instruct. The best of their efforts whether at 
Kew, Peradenia, Melbourne (or New York?) are 
extravagantly impossible ofassimilation by the aver- 
age mind, and needlessly difficult for any mind. The 
student encounters a few thousand plants, hetero- 
geneously assorted and arranged in all the mazes of 
whimsical confusion. It is impossible to extract 
comprehensive knowledge from the collections, they 
are less attainable than the alphabet of the Chinese, 
the keys are less understandable, because more vari- 
able, and often and often the arrangements have no 
keys. 
It is possible of course that sinous tracings were 
gotten off on paper for the guidance of professors 
PRUNUS pendula. ( Courtesy of Ellwanger Barry). 
in charge of such gardens, or they may have been 
“classical” plans. There is no great science in the 
road-making. 
It is always easier to plan papers, than plant 
gardens, and until this is thoroughly recognized by 
public and professors alike, the tyro is sure to flour- 
ish, and he will often rush in with a blaze of trum- 
pets, — to frighten the Angels foreby. 
But the world progresses, (slowly), the 
Gardens of Babylon are dust, the tower of Babel 
is passed away, and the Babel of Botanical confu- 
sion may follow. 
The ten tribes which have sometimes irregular 
but never, I believe bean like flowers or pods, begin 
