THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, May 17, 1859. 
English writer has compared its rich colour to the eye of his 
beloved:— 
‘ To flourish in my favourite flower, 
To blossom round my cot, 
I cultivate the little flower 
They call Forget-me-not. 
‘ It springs where Avon gently flows, 
In wild simplicity, 
And ’ncath my cottage -window grows, 
Sacred to love and thee. 
‘ This pretty little flow’ret’s dye, 
Of soft cerulean blue. 
Appears as if from Ellen’s eye 
It had received its hue. 
4 Though oceans now betwixt us roar, 
Though distant be our lot, 
Ellen ! though we should meet no more, 
Sweet maid, Forget-me-not! ’ 
“Wo have also observed the Forget-mc-not here and there 
blooming on the reedy margin of the shallow Dearne, as it winds 
along its tortuous course through the broad vale which bears its 
name, in Yorkshire ; but nowhere have we seen it so abundant 
and in aucli luxuriance as on the classic banks of the Cam and 
the Grants, along with the yellow Water Lily (Nuphar luted), 
and the yellow Iris (Irispseudo-acorns) ; and in the moist ditches 
of the fields lying adjacent to them, in Cambridgeshire. 
“ The generic name, Myosotis, is compounded of two Greek 
words, signifying mouse-ear, to which its leaves are thought to 
bear a close resemblance. It flowers profusely during the months 
of June, July, and August; and the lower part of the stem, which 
is from one to two feet high, is generally below the surface of the 
water. The whole plant is covered with soft, white, depressed 
heirs. The Germander Speedwell is frequently mistaken for it, 
but a comparison of the two will immediately show the difference ; 
and the distinctions once noticed are not likely to be forgotten. 
“The Forget-me-not, which was formerly known as Mouse-ear 
Scorpion Grass (Myosotis palustris), belongs to the Linnsean 
class Pentandria and order Monogynia , and is included in the 
Natural system in the order Boraginece.” 
VARIETIES. 
Trees at St. Petersburg]!. —How favourable the climate 
and soil of St. Petersburgh are to the growth of trees may be 
seen on the islands in the Neva, where the variety of trees and 
shrubs renders the landscape quite charming. Cornel, Mountain 
Ash, and Alder, fill up the intervals between noble Birches, Elms, 
Limes, Poplars, and Maples. Beech trees arc rare in the vicinity 
of the city, though occurring at Manilofka. The Horse Chestnut 
is totally absent from the natural woods, and is cultivated as a 
rarity only in sheltered places in plantations. I saw it in the 
Botanic Garden at St. Petersburgh growing under glass, while at 
Riga it thrives in the open air. It is not the lower temperature 
of the soil which here proves fatal to this tree, but the intense 
cold of a few days in winter. A degree of cold, however, quite 
as intense as that felt at St. Petersburgh, occurs occasionally in the 
most southern parts of Russian Asia—a fact which proves that 
botanists do not speak very accurately when they say that 
northern Asia is the native country of the Horse Chestnut. Lin¬ 
naeus, and, after him, Persoon, among others, adopt this general 
descriptive comment. M. Schouw, on the other hand, regards 
the occurrence of the iEsculus in Siberia as a characteristic 
which the flora of that country has in common with that of 
North America. Sprengel and De Candolle have mentioned, the 
one Thibet, the other northern India, as being, probably, the 
original country of this tree. It is still more remarkable to find 
the environs of Constantinople pointed out as the place where the 
Horse Chestnut was first found. Busbequius, the ambassador 
of Ferdinand I. to Soliman, is said to have sent the Horse 
Chestnut in 1557 to Matthioli, along with other plants which he 
found in Chalcedon and Adrianople. Sprengel, “Hist. Rei Her¬ 
baria!,” p. 340; Haller, “ Biblioth, Bot.” i. p. 360; although the 
tree is not mentioned in Sibthorp’s “ Flora Gra;ca.” The 
Robinia Caragana, introduced from the south-east, is here planted 
for hedges, and spreads Tike an indigenous plant, while in Central 
Siberia it does not pass north of the 53rd parallel, according to 
Gmelin. Indeed, it stops at the sources of the Obi, the Tom, 
and Yenisei. The 20tli of May seems to be the day when the 
leaves of the Birch here unfold themselves. On the 25th the 
leaflets of the service were fully developed, the Limes being in leaf 
at the same time, and the Willows in flower. The flowers of 
Syringa vulgaris and Rolinia Caragana opened on the 30th. 
With respect to the first manifestations of vegetable life, the 25th 
of May here appears to correspond with the 25tli of April at 
Berlin; but the greater rapidity with which the various phe¬ 
nomena of development succeed one another, as we go northwards, 
was here very manifest. The ice disappears from the Neva on 
the 22nd of April; in thirty days the Birch trees are in leaf, and 
seven more the Syringa flowers.— (JErman's Travels in Sibena.) 
Laylock, or Lilac. — In describing the Queen’s and the 
Princess’s dresses at the Handel Jubilee in Westminster Abbey, 
on 26th May, 1784, we are told that the Queen’s dress was of 
straw colour with laylock bows, and the Princess’s pale laylock 
with white bows. At the present Queen’s drawing-room held on 
14th April last, Her Majesty is said to have worn a tram of 
lilac satin, &c. I understand that laylock in 1784 was the same 
colour as lilac in 1859. Webster says, the shrub commonly 
called the Lilac “ is a native of Persia, and is a species of the 
1 genus Syringa .” It may be a native of Persia, but I cannot 
admit it to be a species of the Syringa. May I request to be in¬ 
formed what is the proper botanical name of the Lilac ? The 
purple Lilac grows to a large size in Lincolnshire, and is there 
called in common parlance the Roman Willow. How can it 
have received this name ? The word lilac, when used to denote 
a colour, should have some specific designation, because there are 
different varieties of the flower, from pure white through many 
shades of purple. It is generally understood, I believe, that the 
term lilac always means the purple-tinted flower. If lilac means 
a light purple, then a vlhite lilac is a contradiction.— Pishey 
Thompson, Stoke Newington.—(Notes and Queries.) 
[Notwithstanding Mr. Thompson’s opposition, the Lilac is the 
Syringa vulgaris of botanists. Bauhin, in his “Historia Plant- 
arum,” i. 224., says it was introduced to Europe about the 
year 1597, by Auger de Busbeck, who, for seven years, was am¬ 
bassador from the Emperor Ferdinand I. to the Sultan Soliman. 
Busbeck brought if from Constantinople, and gave it its Persian 
name Lilac, or IAllach, which seems to have reference to its 
colour. Leel, in Plindooatanee, is synonymous with blue; and 
ale is a clustered flower. The name “ Laylock ” is merely a corrup¬ 
tion of the correct name. One of the earliest of our writers on 
plants, Gerarde, calls it “the blew Pipe Privet,” but he adds 
“ the later -Physitians do nume it Lillach or Lilac." As to its 
being improper to term its variety “ White Lilac,” it is owing to 
that imperfection of language which equally obliges us to talk of 
white Violets, white Blackbirds, &e. The “Roman Willow” is 
a mere local name, occurring in none of our books.] 
The Lamb Plant. —Mr. Erman says, writing about Nijnei, hi 
Northern Russia :—“ The cotton imported by the Bokharians, 
partly raw, partly spun, is a chief object of the trade of Nijnei. 
Now that this product of Southern Asia is imported in abundance, 
it is curious to look back at the fabulous accounts of its origin 
which were current in Russia not quite a century ago. It appears 
to me quite certain that the story of the zoophytic plant called 
Baranez, or Lamb Plant (formed as a diminutive from Baran, a 
sheep), originated in some embellished account of the Cotton 
Plant. Herberstein relates it at full length and unchanged, just 
as he had heard it: the astronomer Chappe d’Auteroche after¬ 
wards added some misconceptions, which evidently arose from his 
imperfect acquaintance with the Russian language. The German 
edition of Herberstein (Basil, 1563), adds, that ‘the Boranez 
has a head, eyes, ears, and all the limbs, like a sheep.’ But it 
mentions correctly ‘ the very fine fleece which the people of that 
country commonly make use of to pad their caps withal.’ This 
is the ordinary use which the Tatar tribes, in general, make of 
Cotton at the present day. When Chappe afterwards related 
that the Baranez (or, as he corruptly writes it, Baramjas), grows 
in the country round the city of Kasan, it is obvious that he was 
misled by the popular use of the name Kasan, which formerly 
comprehended vaguely all the Mohammedan principalities on the 
south-eastern borders of Russia.” 
[Whilst we can agree with M. Erman, in ridiculing the ex¬ 
aggerations relative to the Tartarian or Scytian Lamb Plant, yet 
we are quite satisfied that it exists, and that the part of the 
plant giving rise to those exaggerations is the densely hairy and 
contorted root-stock which appears in various forms above the 
surface of the ground. The old writers describe it under the 
name of Agnus Scythicus ; but Linnaeus, Reichard, and Loureiro, 
trustworthy botanists of a later date, describe it as a Fern, under 
the name of Polypodium Barometz. Schkuln’ and Kunze, still 
later botanists, who have devoted themselves to the study of 
