Proserpina, Volume 2

16. (1) The inner circle full of little cells, diminishing in size towards the outside, represents the pith, 'very large at this period of the growth'—(the first year, we are told in next page,) and 'very large'—he means in proportion to the rest of the branch. How large he does not say, in his text, but states, in his note, that the figure is magnified 26 diameters. I have drawn mine by the more convenient multiplier of 30, and given the real size at B, according to Balfour:—but without believing him to be right. I never saw a maple stem of the first year so small.

FIG. 25.

(2) The black band with white dots round the marrow, represents the marrow-sheath.

(3) From the marrow-sheath run the marrow-rays 'dividing the vascular circle into numerous compact segments.' A 'ray' cannot divide anything into a segment. Only a partition, or a knife, can do that. But we shall find presently that marrow rays ought to be called marrow-plates, and are really mural, forming more or less continuous partitions.

(4) The compact segments 'consist of woody vessels and of porous vessels.' This is the first we have heard of woody vessels! He means the 'fibres ligneux' of Figuier; and represents them in each compartment, as at C (Fig. 25). without telling us why he draws the woody vessels as radiating. They appear to radiate, indeed, when wood is sawn across, but they are really upright.

(5) A moist layer of greenish cellular tissue called the cambium layer—black in Figure 25—and he draws it in flat arches, without saying why.

(6), (7), (8) Three layers of bark (called in his note Endophlœum; Mesophlœum, and Epiphlœum!) with 'laticiferous vessels.' 43

(9) Epidermis. The three layers of bark being separated by single lines, I indicate the epidermis by a double one, with a rough fringe outside, and thus we have the parts of the section clearly visible and distinct for discussion, so far as this first figure goes,—without wanting one letter of all his three and twenty!

17. But on the next page, this ingenious author gives us a new figure, which professes to represent the same order of things in a longitudinal section; and in retracing that order sideways, instead of looking down, he not only introduces new terms, but misses one of his old layers in doing so,—thus:

His order, in explaining Figure 96, contains, as above, nine members of the tree stem.

But his order, in explaining Figure 97, contains only eight, thus:

(1) The pith. (2) Medullary sheath. Circles.

(3) Medullary ray = a Radius.

(4) Vascular zone, with woody fibres (not now vessels!) The fibres are composed of spiral, annular, pitted, and other vessels.

(5) Inner bark or 'liber,' with layer of cambium cells.

(6) Second layer of bark, or 'cellular envelope,' with laticiferous vessels.

(7) Outer or tuberous layer of bark.

(8) Epidermis.

Doing the best I can to get at the muddle-headed gentleman's meaning, it appears, by the lettering of his Figure 97, my 25 above, that the 'liber,' number 5, contains the cambium layer in the middle of it. The part of the liber between the cambium and the wood is not marked in Figure 96;—but the cambium is number 5, and the liber outside of it is number 6,—the Endophlœum of his note.

FIG. 26.

Having got himself into this piece of lovely confusion, he proceeds to give a figure of the wood in the second year, which I think he has borrowed, without acknowledgment, from Figuier, omitting a piece of Figuier's woodcut which is unexplained in Figuier's text. I will spare my readers the work I have had to do, in order to get the statements on either side clarified: but I think they will find, if they care to work through the wilderness of the two authors' wits, that this which follows is the sum of what they have effectively to tell us; with the collated list of the main questions they leave unanswered—and, worse, unasked.

18. An ordinary tree branch, in transverse section, consists essentially of three parts only,—the Pith, Wood, and Bark.

The pith is in full animation during the first year—that is to say, during the actual shooting of the wood. We are left to infer that in the second year, the pith of the then unprogressive shoot becomes collective only, not formative; and that the pith of the new shoot virtually energizes the new wood in its deposition beside the old one. Thus, let a b, Figure 26, be a shoot of the first year, and b c of the second. The pith remains of the same thickness in both, but that of the new shoot is, I suppose, chiefly active in sending down the new wood to thicken the old one, which is collected, however, and fastened by the extending pith-rays below. You see, I have given each shoot four fibres of wood for its own; then the four fibres of the upper one send out two to thicken the lower: the pith-rays, represented by the white transverse claws, catch and gather all together. Mind, I certify nothing of this to you; but if this do not happen,—let the botanists tell you what does.

19. Secondly. The wood, represented by these four lines, is to be always remembered as consisting of fibres and vessels; therefore it is called 'vascular,' a word which you may as well remember (though rarely needed in familiar English), with its roots, vas, a vase, and vasculum, a little vase or phial. 'Vascule' may sometimes be allowed in botanical descriptions where 'cell' is not clear enough; thus, at present, we find our botanists calling the pith 'cellular' but the wood 'vascular,' with, I think, the implied meaning that a 'vascule,' little or large, is a long thing, and has some liquid in it, while a 'cell' is a more or less round thing, and to be supposed empty, unless described as full. But what liquid fills the vascules of the wood, they do not tell us.44 I assume that they absorb water, as long as the tree lives.

FIG. 27.

20. Wood, whether vascular or fibrous, is however formed, in outlaid plants, first outside of the pith, and then, in shoots of the second year, outside of the wood of the first, and in the third year, outside of the wood of the second; so that supposing the quantity of wood sent down from the growing shoot distributed on a flat plane, the structure in the third year would be as in Figure 27. But since the new wood is distributed all round the stem, (in successive cords or threads, if not at once), the increase of substance after a year or two would be untraceable, unless more shoots than one were formed at the extremity of the branch. Of actual bud and branch structure, I gave introductory account long since in the fifth volume of 'Modern Painters.'45 to which I would now refer the reader; but both then, and to-day, after twenty years' further time allowed me, I am unable to give the least explanation of the mode in which the wood is really added to the interior stem. I cannot find, even, whether this is mainly done in springtime, or in the summer and autumn, when the young suckers form on the wood; but my impression is that though all the several substances are added annually, a little more pith going to the edges of the pith-plates, and a little more bark to the bark, with a great deal more wood to the wood,—there is a different or at least successive period for each deposit, the carrying all these elements to their places involving a fineness of basket work or web work in the vessels, which neither microscope nor dissecting tool can disentangle. The result on the whole, however, is practically that we have, outside the wood, always a mysterious 'cambium layer,' and then some distinctions in the bark itself, of which we must take separate notice.

21. Of Cambium, Dr. Gray's 220th article gives the following account. "It is not a distinct substance, but a layer of delicate new cells full of sap. The inner portion of the cambium layer is, therefore, nascent wood, and the outer nascent bark. As the cells of this layer multiply, the greater number lengthen vertically into prosenchyma, or woody tissue, while some are transformed into ducts" (wood vessels?) "and others remaining as parenchyma, continue the medullary rays, or commence new ones." Nothing is said here of the part of the cambium which becomes bark: but at page 128, the thin walled cells of the bark are said to be those of ordinary 'parenchyma,' and in the next page a very important passage occurs, which must have a paragraph to itself. I close the present one with one more protest against the entirely absurd terms 'par-enchyma,' for common cellular tissue, 'pros-enchyma,' for cellular tissue with longer cells;—'cambium' for an early state of both, and 'diachyma' for a peculiar position of one!46 while the chemistry of all these substances is wholly neglected, and we have no idea given us of any difference in pith, wood, and bark, than that they are made of short or long—young or old—cells!

22. But in Dr. Gray's 230th article comes this passage of real value. (Italics mine—all.) "While the newer layers of the wood abound in crude sap, which they convey to the leaves, those of the inner bark abound in elaborated sap, which they receive from the leaves, and convey to the cambium layer, or zone of growth. The proper juices and peculiar products of plants are accordingly found in the foliage and bark, especially the latter. In the bark, therefore, either of the stem or root, medicinal and other principles are usually to be sought, rather than in the wood. Nevertheless, as the wood is kept in connection with the bark by the medullary rays, many products which probably originate in the former are deposited in the wood."

23. Now, at last, I see my way to useful summary of the whole, which I had better give in a separate chapter: and will try in future to do the preliminary work of elaboration of the sap from my authorities, above shown, in its process, to the reader, without making so much fuss about it. But, I think in this case, it was desirable that the floods of pros-, par-, peri-, dia-, and circumlocution, through which one has to wade towards any emergent crag of fact in modern scientific books, should for once be seen in the wasteful tide of them; that so I might finally pray the younger students who feel, or remember, their disastrous sway, to cure themselves for ever of the fatal habit of imagining that they know more of anything after naming it unintelligibly, and thinking about it impudently, than they did by loving sight of its nameless being, and in wise confession of its boundless mystery.

In re-reading the text of this number I can secure my young readers of some things left doubtful, as, for instance, in their acceptance of the word 'Monacha,' for the flower described in the sixth chapter. I have used it now habitually too long to part with it myself, and I think it will be found serviceable and pleasurable by others. Neither shall I now change the position of the Draconidae, as suggested at p. 118, but keep all as first planned. See among other reasons for doing so the letter quoted in p. 121.

I also add to the plate originally prepared for this number, one showing the effect of Veronica officinalis in decoration of foreground, merely by its green leaves; see the paragraphs 1 and 5 of Chapter VI. I have not represented the fine serration of the leaves, as they are quite invisible from standing height: the book should be laid on the floor and looked down on, without stooping, to see the effect intended. And so I gladly close this long-lagging number, hoping never to write such a tiresome chapter as this again, or to make so long a pause between any readable one and its sequence.

NOTES

Yes; and I am glad to have the observation inserted. But my term, 'five-petaled,' must stand. For the question with me is always first, not how the petals are connected, but how many they are. Also I have accepted the term petal—but never the word lip—as applied to flowers. The generic term 'Labiatæ' is cancelled in 'Proserpina,' 'Vestales' being substituted; and these flowers, when I come to examine them, are to be described, not as divided into two lips, but into hood, apron, and side-pockets. Farther, the depth to which either calyx or corolla is divided, and the firmness with which the petals are attached to the torus, may, indeed, often be an important part of the plant's description, but ought not to be elements in its definition. Three petaled and three-sepaled, four-petaled and four-sepaled, five-petaled and five-sepaled, etc., etc., are essential—with me, primal—elements of definition; next, whether resolute or stellar in their connection; next, whether round or pointed, etc. Fancy, for instance, the fatality to a rose of pointing its petals, and to a lily, of rounding them! But how deep cut, or how hard holding, is quite a minor question.

Farther, that all plants are petaled and sepaled, and never mere cups in saucers, is a great fact, not to be dwelt on in a note.

(1) There is no explanation of Lentibulariaceæ in Lindley's 'Vegetable Kingdom.' He was not great in that line. The term is, however, taken from Lenticula, the lentil, in allusion to the lentil-shaped air-bladders of the typical genus Utricularia.

The change of the c into b may possibly have been made only from some euphonic fancy of the contriver of the name, who, I think, was Rich.

But I somewhat incline myself to think that the tibia, a pipe or flute, may have had something to do with it. The tibia may possibly have been diminished into a little pipe by a stretch of licence, and have become tibula: [but tibulus is a kind of pine tree in Pliny]; when Len tibula would be the lens or lentil-shaped pipe or bladder. I give you this only for what it is worth. The lenticula, as a derivation, is reliable and has authority.

Lenticula, a lentil, a freckly eruption; lenticularis, lentil-shaped; so the nat. ord. ought to be (if this be right) lenticulariaceæ.

(2) BOTANIC GARDENS, CHELSEA, Feb. 14, 1882.

Lentibularia is an old generic name of Tournefort's, which has been superseded by utricularia, but, oddly enough, has been retained in the name of the order lentibulareæ; but it probably comes from lenticula, which signifies the little root bladders, somewhat resembling lentils.

(3) 'Manual of Scientific Terms,' Stormonth, p. 234.

Lentibulariaceæ, neuter, plural.

(Lenticula, the shape of a lentil; from lens, a lentil.) The Butterwort family, an order of plants so named from the lenticular shape of the air-bladders on the branches of utricularia, one of the genera. (But observe that the Butterworts have nothing of the sort, any of them.—R.)

Loudon.—"Floaters."

Lindley.—"Sometimes with whorled vesicles."

In Nuttall's Standard (?) Pronouncing Dictionary, it is given,—

Lenticulareæ, a nat. ord. of marsh plants, which thrive in water or marshes.

C. Curtis's Magazine of Botany.

D. Flora Danica.

F. Figuier.

G. Sibthorpe's Flora Græca.

L. Linnæus. Systema Naturæ.

L.S. Linnæus's Flora Suecica. But till we are quite used to the other letters, I print this reference in words.

L.N. William Curtis's Flora Londinensis. Of the exquisite plates engraved for this book by James Sowerby, note is taken in the close of next chapter.

O. Sowerby's English Wild Flowers; the old edition in thirty-two thin volumes—far the best.

S. Sowerby's English Wild Flowers; the modern edition in ten volumes.

1

Vol. i., p. 212, note.

2

See 'Deucalion,' vol. ii., chap, i., p. 12, § 18.

3

I am ashamed to give so rude outlines; but every moment now is valuable to me: careful outline of a dog-violet is given in Plate X.

4

A careless bit of Byron's, (the last song but one in the 'Deformed Transformed'); but Byron's most careless work is better, by its innate energy, than other people's most laboured. I suppress, in some doubts about my 'digamma,' notes on the Greek violet and the Ion of Euripides;—which the reader will perhaps be good enough to fancy a serious loss to him, and supply for himself.

5

Nine; I see that I missed count of P. farinosa, the most abundant of all.

6

"A feeble little quatrefoil—growing one on the stem, like a Parnassia, and looking like a Parnassia that had dropped a leaf. I think it drops one of its own four, mostly, and lives as three-fourths of itself, for most of its time. Stamens pale gold. Root-leaves, three or four, grass-like; growing among the moist moss chiefly."

7

The great work of Lecoq, 'Geographic Botanique,' is of priceless value; but treats all on too vast a scale for our purposes.

8

It is, I believe, Sowerby's Viola Lutea, 721 of the old edition, there painted with purple upper petals; but he says in the text, "Petals either all yellow, or the two uppermost are of a blue purple, the rest yellow with a blue tinge: very often the whole are purple."

9

Did the wretch never hear bees in a lime tree then, or ever see one on a star gentian?

10

Septuagint, "the eyes of doves out of thy silence." Vulgate, "the eyes of doves, besides that which is hidden in them." Meaning—the dim look of love, beyond all others in sweetness.

11

When I have the chance, and the time, to submit the proofs of 'Proserpina' to friends who know more of Botany than I, or have kindness enough to ascertain debateable things for me, I mean in future to do so,—using the letter A to signify Amicus, generally; with acknowledgment by name, when it is permitted, of especial help or correction. Note first of this kind: I find here on this word, 'five-petaled,' as applied to Pinguicula, "Qy. two-lipped? it is monopetalous, and monosepalous, the calyx and corolla being each all in one piece."

12

Our 'Lucia Nivea,' 'Blanche Lucy;' in present botany, Bog bean! having no connection whatever with any manner of bean, but only a slight resemblance to bean-leaves in its own lower ones. Compare Ch. IV. § 11.

13

It is not. (Resolute negative from A., unsparing of time for me; and what a state of things it all signifies!)

14

With the following three notes, 'A' must become a definitely and gratefully interpreted letter. I am indebted for the first, conclusive in itself, but variously supported and confirmed by the two following, to R.J. Mann, Esq., M.D., long ago a pupil of Dr. Lindley's, and now on the council of Whitelands College, Chelsea:—for the second, to Mr. Thomas Moore, F.L.S., the kind Keeper of the Botanic Garden at Chelsea; for the third, which will be farther on useful to us, to Miss Kemm, the botanical lecturer at Whitelands.

15

More accurately, shows the pruned roots of branches,—επειδη προτα τομην εν ‛ορεσσι λελοτπεν. The pruning is the mythic expression of the subduing of passion by rectorial law.

16

The bitter sorrow with which I first recognized the extreme rarity of finely-developed organic sight is expressed enough in the lecture on the Mystery of Life, added in the large edition of 'Sesame and Lilies.'

17

Lat. acesco, to turn sour.

18

Withering quotes this as from Linnæus, and adds on authority of a Mr. Hawkes, "This did not succeed when tried with cows' milk." He also gives as another name, Yorkshire Sanicle; and says it is called earning grass in Scotland. Linnæus says the juice will curdle reindeer's milk. The name for rennet is earning, in Lincolnshire. Withering also gives this note: "Pinguis, fat, from its effect in CONGEALING milk."—(A.) Withering of course wrong: the name comes, be the reader finally assured, from the fatness of the green leaf, quite peculiar among wild plants, and fastened down for us in the French word 'Grassette.' I have found the flowers also difficult to dry, in the benighted early times when I used to think a dried plant useful! See closing paragraphs of the *4th chapter.—R.

19

I find much more difficulty, myself, being old, in using my altered names for species than my young scholars will. In watching the bells of the purple bindweed fade at evening, let them learn the fourth verse of the prayer of Hezekiah, as it is in the Vulgate—"Generatio mea ablata est, et convoluta est a me, sicut tabernaculum pastoris,"—and they will not forget the name of the fast-fading—ever renewed—"belle d'un jour."

20

"It is Miss Cobbe, I think, who says 'all wild flowers know how to die gracefully.'"—A.

21

See distinction between recumbent and rampant herbs, below, under 'Veronica Agrestis,' p. 72.

22

'Abstracted' rather, I should have said, and with perfect skill, by Mr. Collingwood (the joint translator of Xenophon's Economics for the 'Bibliotheca Pastorum'). So also the next following cut, Fig. 5.

23

Of the references, henceforward necessary to the books I have used as authorities, the reader will please note the following abbreviations:—

24

See letter on the last results of our African campaigns, in the Morning Post of April 14th, of this year.

25

I deliberately, not garrulously, allow more autobiography in 'Proserpina' than is becoming, because I know not how far I may be permitted to carry on that which was begun in 'Fors.'

26

In present Botany, Polygala Chamæbuxus; C. 316: or, in English, Much Milk Ground-box. It is not, as matters usually go, a name to be ill thought of, as it really contains three ideas; and the plant does, without doubt, somewhat resemble box, and grows on the ground;—far more fitly called 'ground-box' than the Veronica 'ground-oak.' I want to find a pretty name for it in connection with Savoy or Dauphine, where it indicates, as above stated, the healthy districts of hard limestone. I do not remember it as ever occurring among the dark and moist shales of the inner mountain ranges, which at once confine and pollute the air.

27

Which, with the following page, is the summary of many chapters of 'Modern Painters:' and of the aims kept in view throughout 'Munera Pulveris.' The three kinds of Desert specified—of Reed, Sand, and Rock—should be kept in mind as exhaustively including the states of the earth neglected by man. For instance of a Reed desert, produced merely by his neglect, see Sir Samuel Baker's account of the choking up of the bed of the White Nile. Of the sand desert, Sir F. Palgrave's journey from the Djowf to Hāyel, vol. i., p. 92.

28

This subject is first entered on in the 'Seven Lamps,' and carried forward in the final chapters of 'Modern Painters,'to the point where I hope to take it up for conclusion, in the sections of 'Our Fathers have told us' devoted to the history of the fourteenth century.

29

See in the first volume, the plates of Sonchus Arvensis and Tussilago Petasites; in the second, Carduus tomentosus and Picris Echioides.

30

For the sense in which this word is used throughout my writings, see the definition of it in the 52nd paragraph of the 'Queen of the Air,' comparing with respect to its office in plants, §§ 59-60.

31

Written in 1880.

32

The plate of Chamædrys, D. 448, is also quite right, and not 'too tall and weedlike,' as I have called it at p. 72.

33

"Stems numerous from the crown of the root-stock, de-cumbent."—S. The effect of the flower upon the ground is always of an extremely upright and separate plant, never appearing in clusters, (I meant, in close masses – it forms exquisite little rosy crowds, on ground that it likes) or in any relation to a central root. My epithet 'rosea' does not deny its botanical de- or pro-cumbency.