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JOURNAL  OF  HORTICULTURE  AND  COTTAGE  GARDENER. 
October  23.  1912. 
Botanic  Gardens. 
In  reading  the  history  of  botany  and  gardening,  we  are 
struck  with  the  quaint  ideas  which  first  prevailed  regarding 
plants  and  their  uses,  especially  those  used  in  medicine. 
Both  gardening  and  botany,  we  learn,  had  very  small  begin¬ 
nings.  The  former  was  merely  the  cultivation  of  such  plants 
as  were  found  wild,  and  suited  either  as  food  or  clothing  for 
man.  Botany  began  to  be  studied  by  the  old  physicians,  who 
used  many  plants  in  their  prescriptions.  History,  however, 
gives  us  no  idea  of  the  number  of  victims  who  succumbed  to 
their  crude  experiments,  not  to  mention  the  many  super¬ 
stitious  notions  regarding  their  virtues  or  properties.  The 
herbalists  (and  they  are  not  yet  extinct)  considered  that 
every  plant  was  created  for 
man’s  use,  either  as  food, 
fuel,  medicine,  or  manufac¬ 
tures  ;  hence  it  is  quite  easy 
for  us  to  conceive  how  these 
plants,  when  their  uses 
became  known,  should  be 
cultivated.  Those  yielding 
fruit,  food,  &c.,  fell  to  the 
lot  of  the  farmer  or  husband¬ 
man,  and  those  which  were 
used  in  medicine  were  grown 
by  the  physician  or  apothe¬ 
cary. 
Some  of  the  old  his¬ 
torians  wTere  learned  in 
many  subjects,  from  medi¬ 
cine  to  astronomy,  or  they 
might  also  be  Governors  of 
provinces,  and  they  mostly 
copied  the  writings  of  their 
predecessors,  especially 
those  of  Dioscorides,  who 
was  probably  the  earliest 
botanist  recorded  in  history. 
Some  of  his  MSS.  books 
Buddleia  variabilis  var.  Veitchiana. 
(Half-size. 
are  still  in  existence,  the  most  celebrated  of  these  being  in 
the  Imperial  Library  of  Vienna,  and  from  which  plates  were 
prepared,  but  two  impressions  only  appear  to  have  been 
taken  off.  One  of  these  was  sent  to  Linnaeus,  and  is  now  m 
the  library  of  the  Linnsean  Society  of  London,  and  the  other 
to  Sibthorp  (either  as  a  loan  or  gift),  who  was  at  Oxford  in 
his  preparation  of  the  Flora  of  Greece,  and  that  copy  is  now 
in  the  library  of  the  Botanic  Garden,  Oxford. 
Throughout  the  Bible  we  read  of  vineyards  and  gardens, 
so  that  gardening  is  very  ancient.  The  Arabs  were'  great 
physicians,  and  much  versed  in  the  medical  properties  of 
plants,  which  knowledge  soon  spread  to  Greece  and  Itaiy 
and  other  countries  bordering  on  the  Mediterranean,  and 
gradually  spread  northwards  to  France,  Germany,  and 
Holland,'  and  finally  reached  this  country.  Many  of  our 
cultivated  plants,  and  some  of  the  weeds  of  our  hedger ov  s, 
were  brought  by  the  Romans  when  they  invaded  Great 
Britain.  Some  of  these  were  cultivated  by  the  monks  in  the 
grounds  attached  to  monasteries  for  medicinal  purposes,  or 
as  pot  herbs  ;  and,  strange  to  say,  many  of  these  plants  are 
still  to  be  found,  more  or  less  naturalised,  near  these  places, 
or  where  they  formerly  existed. 
From  these  small  beginnings,  the  monks  soon  planted 
vegetables  and  fruit  trees,  which  were  looked  after  by  the 
inmates  of  those  places.  The  knowledge  of  the  use  and 
culture  of  these  plants  soon  spread  to  the  people  of  the 
neighbouring  cottages,  and  were  grown  by  them.  The  most 
ornamental  plants  were  cultivated  also  for  their  beauty,  but 
as  our  subject  is  concerned  with  botanic  gardens,  we  must 
leave  the  history  of  gardening  to  the  interesting  writer  of 
the  articles  entitled  “Old-time  Gardening,”  which  are 
appearing  in  this  journal. 
While  ordinary  gardens  are  concerned 
with  the  use  and  beauty  of  plants  only,  or  in 
the  case  of  public  parks  and  recreation 
grounds  for  showing  individual  plants,  or  the 
massing  of  them  for  effect,  the  botanic  garden 
has  for  its  primary  aim  the  promotion  of 
botanical  science,  by  collecting  as  many  plants 
as  possible  from  all  parts  of  the  world,  and 
finding  means  for  their  proper  growth,  such 
as  plant  houses,  warm  water  tanks,  rockeries, 
and,  in  many  cases,  by  supplying  special  kinds 
of  soil,  as  peat,  limestone,  clayey  soil,  sandy 
soil,  or  sea  sand  for  them.  So  far  as  possible 
plants  that  are  allied  should  be  planted  near 
each  other  to  show  their  relationship  ;  or  they 
are  sometimes  grouped  together  according  to 
their  uses,  structure,  or  geographical  distri¬ 
bution. 
Botanic  gardens,  or  as  they  were  formerly 
called,  physic  gardens,  are  of  comparatively 
modern  origin,  and,  like  the  science  itself, 
owes  their  birth  to  the  needs  of  pharmacy. 
Thus,  at  the  earliest  European  school  of 
medicine,  that  of  Salerno,  in  Italy,  we  find  a 
record,  in  1309,  of  the  medical  garden  of 
Matthseus  Sylvaticus  ;  while  in  1333  a  similar 
garden  was  established  by  the  Republic  of 
Venice.  Many  similar  gardens,  public  and 
private,  were  established  in  the  next  three 
hundred  years.  The  first  three  public  botanic 
gardens  of  which  we  have  records  were  estab¬ 
lished  in  Italy  ;  the  first  of  these  at  Padua  in 
1533,  that  of  Pisa  soon  followed,  and  that  of 
Bologna,  established  in  1547  by  Luca  Ghini, 
that  he  might  grow  the  plants  required  for 
teaching  purposes.  Luca  Ghini  was  also  the 
first  public  professor  of  botany. 
I  will  now*  give  the  dates  when  some  of 
the  principal  botanic  gardens  v*ere  estab¬ 
lished : — Zurich,  in  Switzerland,  1560;  Paris, 
1570  ;  Leyden,  1577  ;  Leipsic,  1580  ;  Mont¬ 
pellier,  1598  ;  Copenhagen,  1600  ;  Jena,  1628  ; 
Oxford,  1632  ;  Chelsea  Physic  Garden,  1673  ; 
Edinburgh,  1680 ;  Kew,  1760  ;  Cambridge, 
1763 ;  Trinity  College,  Dublin,  1786  ;  Glas- 
nevin,  1798  ;  Liverpool,  1803  ;  Ceylon,  1811  ; 
Belfast,  1830  ;  St.  Andrews  University,  1889  ; 
Yorkshire  College,  Leeds,  1896  ;  and  Aber¬ 
deen,  1899. 
The  Paris  Botanic  Garden  was  founded  in 
1570  (or  1597  1)  ;  but  at  first  it  is  said  only  with 
the  petty  aim  of  varying  the  bouquets  worn  at 
Court.  In  1626,  howreveJr,  its  scientific  purposes  were  defined, 
and  in  1635  professorships  of  botany  and  pharmacology  were 
founded,  which  soon  made  it  famous  as  the  Jardin  des 
Plantes.  A  further  impetus  was  given  by  the  popularisation 
of  botany  in  the  eighteenth  century  by  the  great  Linnaeus. — 
Albert  Hosking.  (t0  te  concluded.) 
BUDDLEIA  VARIABILIS  var.  VEITCHIANA. 
This  new  variety  was  exhibited  by  Messrs.  J.  Veitcli  and  Sons 
(Limited),  Royal  Exotic  Nursery.  Chelsea,  S.W.,  on  August  18, 
before  the  Floral  Committee  of  the  Royal  Horticultural  Society, 
when  a  First  Class  Certificate  was  accorded.  The  dense  thyrsoid 
inflorescence  is  coloured  bright  heliotrope,  being  quite  3in 
through  at  the  base,  and  12in  to  loin  long.  Our  illustration 
depicts  the  variety  a  little  over  half  natural  size.  It  is  a  very 
handsome  new  Buddleia. 
