102 
THE NATURALISTS’ JOURNAL. 
ing had fallen into disrepute, but was revived in this country in 
the middle ages by the Monks, and during the reign of Henry 
VIII. had become a serious study. We owed Greenwich Park, 
and St. James’s Park in the first place to Charles II. The re¬ 
cently opened Waterlow Park, in the North of London, was an 
illustration of the old English style of gardening, with its walks, 
terraces, evergreen hedges, and box shrubs. One of the greatest 
gardeners of the last century was John Evelyn, who died in 1796. 
He was the author of a work called “ Sylva,” which had the 
honour of being the first published by the Royal Society. Ano¬ 
ther notable work on the subject of horticulture, was Loudon’s 
“ Encyclopaedia of Gardening’” the publication of which had 
raised a great outcry from the “ classes,” who objected to their 
favourite pursuit becoming familiar to the “ masses,” but the 
spread of such knowledge among the people had done much to 
improve gardening generally. The region of the Mississippi had 
been called “ the garden of the world,” but why was not very 
obvious. The wealth of our native flora was very great, and also 
very mixed, and it showed that in former geological times, Great 
Britain had been united to the Continent, and some of our 
flowers were common to both sides of the Channel. The distri¬ 
bution of our flora had been greatly affected by the glacial epoch. 
The lecturer then proceeded to describe how primitive plants 
had bright golden yellow flowers, which had then become modi¬ 
fied, and their colours had ranged through white, pink, red, 
crimson, and purple to blue, the most highly specialised colour 
of all being deep blue. All this had a bearing on the origin of 
our garden flowers, many of which had been derived from a com¬ 
mon ancestor. Thus the lily had given rise to more advanced 
descendants in every climate, including the snowdrop and the 
daffodil, while on the other hand, the onion and the garlic were 
degenerated lilies. Among flowers that had been originally imported 
from abroad, were the Camellia, the carnation, the heaths, and 
honeysuckles, the Petunia, the Virginian creeper, etc. Many 
garden flowers were named after their discoverers, as the 
Camellia, which was named after Camel, a Jesuit, and the 
Dahlia, after Dahl, the Swedish botanist. Others had been 
dedicated to celebrated personages out of compliment, while of 
course the name of many indicated structural peculiarities, etc. 
The popular names of many garden plants, were of deep interest, 
and were often corruptions of the originals, as in the case of the 
foxglove, which was once spelt “folk’s glove,” or fairies’ glove. 
The pink was so called, not from its colour, but from the edges 
of the petals being “ pinked,” or notched. The rosemary had a 
name derived from the Latin, signifying “ sea dew,” and referring 
to the situations where it occurred. “Tulip” was a Turkish 
word meaning “ turban.” There was an intense mania for these 
flowers from 1634 to l ^ 37 ’ fabulous prices being given for their 
