134 
THE FLORIST AND POMOLOGIST. 
country to 11 1 o 1 r fcizcixdcis or hciczcTiclcis . t'lic 
shrub was first 'described by botanists, and 
was afterwards introduced by the Dutch into 
a o-arden at Batavia; from thence it was 
taken to the Botanical Garden at Amsterdam, 
from whence a specimen was sent to the king 
of France in 1714. De Clieu, a naval officer, 
transplanted it from the garden at Paris to 
the French colonies in America. A multi¬ 
tude of such instances might be named. In 
the present day science has progressed, prac¬ 
tical men avail themselves of it, governments 
and nations have abandoned those mistaken 
ideas in accordance with which it was sup¬ 
posed that a cultivation advantageous to one 
country was injurious to others. Hence we 
may hope to see, before long, useful species 
planted in all regions where they can thrive, 
to the great advantage of mankind in general. 
One of the most evident effects of science 
has been to create in the horticultural public 
a taste for varied and rare forms. Formerly 
in gardens there were only to he found cer¬ 
tain kinds of plants which dated back to the 
time of the Crusades, or even of the Romans. 
The discovery of the Hew World did not 
produce a change in proportion to its im¬ 
portance ; perhaps because horticulturists did 
not travel enough, or acquaint themselves 
with those countries whose species were most 
suitable for cultivation in Europe. Botanists, 
fortunately, were more ambitious. Their col¬ 
lectors were numerous and daring. They en¬ 
riched their herbaria with an infinitude of 
new forms, and published works upon exotic 
plants, such as those of Hernandez, Rum- 
phius, Sloane, &c. The immense variety in 
the forms of plants was thenceforth recog¬ 
nised, and in point of taste the elegant sim¬ 
plicity of the primitive flowers was able to 
vie with the gaudiness of the double ones. 
Then ceased the reign of Tulips and Pseonies 
in flower gardens. Curiosity, that great in-* 
centive to all science, having penetrated hor¬ 
ticulture, the change in gardens became rapid. 
Instead of a few hundred species such as were 
cultivated at the commencement of the last 
century, there are now 20,000 or 30,000 to be 
found in most of the present catalogues. The 
single family of Orchids has probably more 
different representatives in our hothouses than 
was the case with all the families of plants 
put together a hundred years ago. Fashion, 
united to the present curiosity of amateurs, 
causes, from time to time, old plants to be 
abandoned for new ones ; and thus the entire 
vegetable kingdom will ultimately pass under 
the observation of civilised man. 
What would horticulturists do, amidst this 
invasion of thousands of species, had not 
botanists devised convenient plans of classifi¬ 
cation and nomenclature ? The families, 
genera, and species, have all been arranged in 
books, just as the districts, streets, and num¬ 
bers of the houses are in our great capitals— 
with this superiority of method, that the form 
of the objects indicates their place—as if, in 
looking at a house in a town, one could dis¬ 
cover, at a glance, to what street and to what 
quarter it belonged. The plan of giving a 
single name to each species besides its generic 
name, together with the prohibition of chang¬ 
ing names without due reason, and of giving 
the same appellation to two different species, 
or to two genera, far excels our plan of dis¬ 
tinguishing individuals. How much it would 
simplify our intercourse with men, and facili¬ 
tate our inquiries, if, in the whole world, the 
members of one family only bore the same 
name, and if each individual had but one 
Christian name, differing from those of the 
other members of his family. Such is, never¬ 
theless, the admirable plan of nomenclature 
that science has provided for horticulturists, 
and which they cannot too much appreciate 
and respect. * 
Thirdly.—The Beneficial Effects of 
the Association of Botany with Horti¬ 
culture.— The pursuit of horticulture de¬ 
mands books and herbaria, as that of scien¬ 
tific botany requires cultivated living plants. 
Thence the necessity, which is more and more 
recognised, of bringing together the materials 
for comparison in the same town, the same 
establishment, and even under the same 
administration, organised so as to facilitate 
the use of them. How many institutions in 
Europe, either private or public, would be 
benefited by this arrangement! How many 
towns and countries are now deficient—some 
in libraries, some in herbaria, some in respect 
to horticulture! Professional men proffer their 
complaint; let us hope that public opinion 
may end by listening to them.f 
The bringing together the means of study, 
I have said, is desirable. Hot less so is the 
interchange of ideas and impressions, both of 
botanists and horticulturists. Each of these 
classes must clearly have distinct character¬ 
istics ; but the one should be influenced by 
the other. By these means, some too-retiring 
dispositions may be brought out, and certain 
* Two years ago I made a request to the Federa¬ 
tion des Societes d’Horticulture Beiges, which 
appears to have been favourably received, and it 
may not be useless to repeat it here. It consisted 
in begging the horticulturists who obtain new varie¬ 
ties not to give them botanical names with a Latin 
designation, but merely arbitrary names of quite a 
different nature, in order to avoid confusion and 
useless researches in books. For example, if they 
called a Calceolaria Sebastopol, or Triomphe de 
Gand, every one would understand it meant a garden 
variety ; but if they named it Lindleyi, or mirabilis, 
the student would take it to be a botanical species, 
and would seai’ch for it in scientific works, or in 
the Floras of Chili; and botanists, happening per¬ 
haps to mistake it, would add it to the end of the 
genus in their books as a species imperfectly known. 
The more horticultural names differ from Latin ones, 
the better it is, unless they can be appended to the 
scientific nomenclature: as when we say Brassica 
campestris oleifera, instead of, shortly, Colza,. 
t The Botanical Gardens at Kew afford a fine ex¬ 
ample of what should be done, either on a large or 
a more modest scale, in many towns where the 
means of study are yet inconvenient or incomplete. 
