ACCIDENTAL INTRODUCTION OF PLANTS. 
67 
The hortus siccus of a botanist may accidentally sow seeds 
from the foot of the Himalayas on the plains that skirt the 
Alps; and it is a fact of very familiar observation, that exotics, 
transplanted to foreign climates suited to their growth, often 
escape from the flower garden and naturalize themselves 
among the spontaneous vegetation * of the pastures. When 
the cases containing the artistic treasures of Thorvaldsen were 
opened in the court of the museum where they are deposited, 
the straw and grass employed in packing them w^ere scattered 
upon the ground, and the next season there sprang up from 
the seeds no less than twenty-five species of plants belonging 
to the Homan campagna, some of which were preserved and 
cultivated as a new tribute to the memory of the great Scan¬ 
dinavian sculptor, and at least four are said to have spon¬ 
taneously naturalized themselves about Copenhagen.* In the 
campaign of 1814, the Russian troops brought, in the stuffing 
of their saddles and by other accidental means, seeds from the 
banks of the Dnieper to the valley of the Rhine, and even 
introduced the plants of the steppes into the environs of Paris. 
The Turkish armies, in their incursions into Europe, brought 
Eastern vegetables in their train, and left the seeds of Oriental 
wall plants to grow upon the ramparts of Buda and Yienna.f 
British colony in New England, says that the settlers at Plymouth had ob¬ 
served more than twenty English plants springing up spontaneously near 
their improvements. 
Every country has many plants not now, if ever, made use of by man, 
and therefore not designedly propagated by him, but which cluster around 
his dwelling, and continue to grow luxuriantly on the ruins of his rural 
habitation after he has abandoned it. The site of a cottage, the very foun¬ 
dation stones of which have been carried off, may often be recognized, 
years afterward, by the rank weeds which cover it, though no others of 
the same species are found for miles. 
“Hedieeval Catholicism,” says Vaupell, “brought us the red horsehoof 
—whose reddish-brown flower buds shoot up from the ground when the 
snow melts, and are followed by the large leaves —Iwgehulsuhher and 
snake-root, which grow only where there were convents and other dwell¬ 
ings in the Middle Ages.”— Bogens Indvandring i de Banshe Shove, pp. 1, 2. 
* Vaupell, Bogens Invandring i de Banshe Shove, p. 2. 
t It is, I believe, nearly certain that the Turks inflicted tobacco upon 
