ON THE CULTURE OF WILD FLOWERS AND PLANTS. 
85 
to study the subject, and obtain more information respecting it, 
than as anything in the way of direct elucidation, or the deve¬ 
lopment of principles ; for which, indeed, there are not sufficient 
facts. 
It has been said, that “ a prophet has no honour in his own 
country and the same may be said of a wild flower, or a wild 
plant, whatever may be the beauty of the one or the symmetry 
of the other. In comparatively rude states of civilization, just as 
in early life among those farther advanced, there is a sort of love 
of flowers ; but it seems to partake of the fleeting nature of the 
blooms themselves. In very rude states of society, flowers appear 
to be wholly unheeded ; and even where it is a little more ad¬ 
vanced, the feathers of a bird are preferred to flowers as subjects 
of personal decoration. The Pelargoniums, the Ixias, and various 
other flowers of Southern Africa, are almost unrivalled in the 
brilliancy of their colours ; and the flowers of the epidendral 
Orchidacese of intertropical America are equally remarkable for 
the singular shapes of all their blossoms, and the varied colouring 
of many of them. But notwithstanding these, which are high 
attractions to the floriculturist, neither the Hottentots and other 
South American tribes, nor the American Indians, use these 
flowers for ornamental purposes, or appear to set the smallest 
value upon them. The fact is, that the cultivation of flowers, in 
the way in which they are now cultivated by the more zealous 
and skilful growers in Britain and other countries, where taste is 
the grand source of enjoyment to all but the merest vulgar, be¬ 
longs to a very advanced state of civilization and refinement,—a 
branch of what are truly denominated the fine arts ; and a florist 
is an artist of a very high class,—far higher, indeed, than those 
who arrogate to themselves more pomp and circumstance. 
But to proceed to our wild flowers. They are neglected for 
the same reason that the prophet is neglected in his own country 
—they are every day things in their appearance; and therefore 
we pass them by unheeded, unless in the case of new and strange 
ones, ahid these are prized by the botanist rather than the culti¬ 
vator. This we might expect, for it holds good of all subjects, 
whether they be productions of nature or of art; but there is 
another cause of the neglect of wild flowers, in which there is a 
good deal of the philosophy of plants involved ; and therefore it 
is to this that our attention should be directed. 
