Proserpina, Volume 1

For these reasons, the Master name of this family, for my French pupils, must be simply 'Rhodiades,' which will bring, for them, the entire group of names into easily remembered symmetry; and the English form of the same name, Rhodiad, is to be used by English scholars also for all tribes of this group except the five principal ones.

24. Farther, in every gens of plants, one will be chosen as the representative, which, if any, will be that examined and described in the course of this work, if I have opportunity of doing so.

This representative flower will always be a wild one, and of the simplest form which completely expresses the character of the plant; existing divinely and unchangeably from age to age, ungrieved by man's neglect, and inflexible by his power.

And this divine character will be expressed by the epithet 'Sacred,' taking the sense in which we attach it to a dominant and christened majesty, when it belongs to the central type of any forceful order;—'Quercus sacra,' 'Laurus sacra,' etc.,—the word 'Benedicta,' or 'Benedictus,' being used instead, if the plant be too humble to bear, without some discrepancy and unbecomingness, the higher title; as 'Carduus Benedictus,' Holy Thistle.

25. Among the gentes of flowers bearing girls' names, the dominant one will be simply called the Queen, 'Rose Regina,' 'Rose the Queen' (the English wild rose); 'Clarissa Regina,' 'Clarissa the Queen' (Mountain Pink); 'Lucia Regina,' 'Lucy the Queen' (Spring Gentian), or in simpler English, 'Lucy of Teesdale,' as 'Harry of Monmouth.' The ruling flowers of groups which bear names not yet accepted for names of girls, will be called simply 'Domina,' or shortly 'Donna.' 'Rubra domina' (wild raspberry): the wild strawberry, because of her use in heraldry, will bear a name of her own, exceptional, 'Cora coronalis.'

26. These main points being understood, and concessions made, we may first arrange the greater orders of land plants in a group of twelve, easily remembered, and with very little forcing. There must be some forcing always to get things into quite easily tenable form, for Nature always has her ins and outs. But it is curious how fitly and frequently the number of twelve may be used for memoria technica; and in this instance the Greek derivative names fall at once into harmony with the most beautiful parts of Greek mythology, leading on to early Christian tradition.

27. Their series will be, therefore, as follows: the principal subordinate groups being at once placed under each of the great ones. The reasons for occasional appearance of inconsistency will be afterwards explained, and the English and French forms given in each case are the terms which would be used in answering the rapid question, 'Of what order is this flower?' the answer being, It is a 'Cyllenid,' a 'Pleiad,' or a 'Vestal,' as one would answer of a person, he is a Knight of St. John or Monk of St. Benedict; while to the question, of what gens, we answer, a Stella or an Erica, as one would answer of a person, a Stuart or Plantagenet.

I. CHARITESEng. CHARIS. Fr. RHODIADERosa. Persica. Pomum. Rubra. FragariaII. URANIDESEng. URANID. Fr. URANIDELucia. Campanula. ConvolutaIII. CYLLENIDESEng. CYLLENID. Fr. NEPHELIDEStella. Francesca. PrimulaIV. OREIADESEng. OREIAD. Fr. OREADEErica. Myrtilla. AuroraV. PLEIADESEng. PLEIAD. Fr. PLEIADESilvia. AnemoneVI. ARTEMIDESEng. ARTEMID. Fr. ARTEMIDEClarissa. Lychnis. Scintilla. MicaVII. VESTALESEng. VESTAL. Fr. VESTALEMentha. Melitta. Basil. Salvia. Lavandula. ThymusVIII. CYTHERIDESEng. CYTHERID. Fr. CYTHERIDEViola. Veronica. GiuliettaIX. HELIADESEng. ALCESTID. Fr. HELIADEClytia. Margarita. Alcestis. Falconia. CarduusX. DELPHIDESEng. DELPHID. Fr. DELPHIDELaurus. Granata. MyrtusXI. HESPERIDESEng. HESPERID. Fr. HESPERIDEAurantia. AgleeXII. ATHENAIDESEng. ATHENAID. Fr. ATHENAIDEOlea. Fraxinus

I will shortly note the changes of name in their twelve orders, and the reasons for them.

I. Charites.—The only change made in the nomenclature of this order is the slight one of 'rubra' for 'rubus': partly to express true sisterhood with the other Charites; partly to enforce the idea of redness, as characteristic of the race, both in the lovely purple and russet of their winter leafage, and in the exquisite bloom of scarlet on the stems in strong young shoots. They have every right to be placed among the Charites, first because the raspberry is really a more important fruit in domestic economy than the strawberry; and, secondly, because the wild bramble is often in its wandering sprays even more graceful than the rose; and in blossom and fruit the best autumnal gift that English Nature has appointed for her village children.

II. Uranides.—Not merely because they are all of the color of the sky, but also sacred to Urania in their divine purity. 'Convoluta' instead of 'convolvulus,' chiefly for the sake of euphony; but also because pervinca is to be included in this group.

III. Cyllenides.—Named from Mount Cyllene in Arcadia, because the three races included in the order alike delight in rocky ground, and in the cold or moist air of mountain-clouds.

IV. Oreiades.—Described in next chapter.

V. Pleiades.—From the habit of the flowers belonging to this order to get into bright local clusters. Silvia, for the wood-sorrel, will I hope be an acceptable change to my girl-readers.

VI. Artemides.—Dedicate to Artemis for their expression of energy, no less than purity. This character was rightly felt in them by whoever gave the name 'Dianthus' to their leading race; a name which I should have retained if it had not been bad Greek. I wish them, by their name 'Clarissa' to recall the memory of St. Clare, as 'Francesca' that of St. Francis.54 The 'issa,' not without honour to the greatest of our English moral story-tellers, is added for the practical reason, that I think the sound will fasten in the minds of children the essential characteristic of the race, the cutting of the outer edge of the petal as if with scissors.

VII. Vestales.—I allow this Latin form, because Hestiades would have been confused with Heliades. The order is named 'of the hearth,' from its manifold domestic use, and modest blossoming.

VIII. Cytherides.—Dedicate to Venus, but in all purity and peace of thought. Giulietta, for the coarse, and more than ordinarily false, Polygala.

IX. Heliades.—The sun-flowers.55 In English, Alcestid, in honour to Chaucer and the Daisy.

X. Delphides.—Sacred to Apollo. Granata, changed from Punica, in honor to Granada and the Moors.

XI. Hesperides.—Already a name given to the order. Aegle, prettier and more classic than Limonia, includes the idea of brightness in the blossom.

XII. Athenaides.—I take Fraxinus into this group, because the mountain ash, in its hawthorn-scented flower, scarletest of berries, and exquisitely formed and finished leafage, belongs wholly to the floral decoration of our native rocks, and is associated with their human interests, though lightly, not less spiritually, than the olive with the mind of Greece.

28. The remaining groups are in great part natural; but I separate for subsequent study five orders of supreme domestic utility, the Mallows, Currants, Pease,56 Cresses, and Cranesbills, from those which, either in fruit or blossom, are for finer pleasure or higher beauty. I think it will be generally interesting for children to learn those five names as an easy lesson, and gradually discover, wondering, the world that they include. I will give their terminology at length, separately.

29. One cannot, in all groups, have all the divisions of equal importance; the Mallows are only placed with the other four for their great value in decoration of cottage gardens in autumn: and their softly healing qualities as a tribe. They will mentally connect the whole useful group with the three great Æsculapiadæ, Cinchona, Coffea, and Camellia.

30. Taking next the water-plants, crowned in the DROSIDÆ, which include the five great families, Juncus, Jacinthus, Amaryllis, Iris, and Lilium, and are masculine in their Greek name because their two first groups, Juncus and Jacinthus, are masculine, I gather together the three orders of TRITONIDES, which are notably trefoil; the NAIADES, notably quatrefoil, but for which I keep their present pretty name; and the BATRACHIDES,57 notably cinqfoil, for which I keep their present ugly one, only changing it from Latin into Greek.

31. I am not sure of being forgiven so readily for putting the Grasses, Sedges, Mosses, and Lichens together, under the great general head of Demetridæ. But it seems to me the mosses and lichens belong no less definitely to Demeter, in being the first gatherers of earth on rock, and the first coverers of its sterile surface, than the grass which at last prepares it to the foot and to the food of man. And with the mosses I shall take all the especially moss-plants which otherwise are homeless or companionless, Drosera, and the like, and as a connecting link with the flowers belonging to the Dark Kora, the two strange orders of the Ophryds and Agarics.

32. Lastly will come the orders of flowers which may be thought of as belonging for the most part to the Dark Kora of the lower world,—having at least the power of death, if not its terror, given them, together with offices of comfort and healing in sleep, or of strengthening, if not too prolonged, action on the nervous power of life. Of these, the first will be the DIONYSIDÆ,—Hedera, Vitis, Liana; then the DRACONIDÆ,—Atropa, Digitalis, Linaria; and, lastly, the MOIRIDÆ,—Conîum, Papaver, Solanum, Arum, and Nerium.

33. As I see this scheme now drawn out, simple as it is, the scope of it seems not only far too great for adequate completion by my own labour, but larger than the time likely to be given to botany by average scholars would enable them intelligently to grasp: and yet it includes, I suppose, not the tenth part of the varieties of plants respecting which, in competitive examination, a student of physical science is now expected to know, or at least assert on hearsay, something.

So far as I have influence with the young, myself, I would pray them to be assured that it is better to know the habits of one plant than the names of a thousand; and wiser to be happily familiar with those that grow in the nearest field, than arduously cognisant of all that plume the isles of the Pacific, or illumine the Mountains of the Moon.

Nevertheless, I believe that when once the general form of this system in Proserpina has been well learned, much other knowledge may be easily attached to it, or sheltered under the eaves of it: and in its own development, I believe everything may be included that the student will find useful, or may wisely desire to investigate, of properly European botany. But I am convinced that the best results of his study will be reached by a resolved adherence to extreme simplicity of primal idea, and primal nomenclature.

34. I do not think the need of revisal of our present scientific classification could be more clearly demonstrated than by the fact that laurels and roses are confused, even by Dr. Lindley, in the mind of his feminine readers; the English word laurel, in the index to his first volume of Ladies' Botany, referring them to the cherries, under which the common laurel is placed as 'Prunus Laurocerasus,' while the true laurel, 'Laurus nobilis,' must be found in the index of the second volume, under the Latin form 'Laurus.'

This accident, however, illustrates another, and a most important point to be remembered, in all arrangements whether of plants, minerals, or animals. No single classification can possibly be perfect, or anything like perfect. It must be, at its best, a ground, or warp of arrangement only, through which, or over which, the cross threads of another,—yes, and of many others,—must be woven in our minds. Thus the almond, though in the form and colour of its flower, and method of its fruit, rightly associated with the roses, yet by the richness and sweetness of its kernel must be held mentally connected with all plants that bear nuts. These assuredly must have something in their structure common, justifying their being gathered into a conceived or conceivable group of 'Nuciferæ,' in which the almond, hazel, walnut, cocoa-nut, and such others would be considered as having relationship, at least in their power of secreting a crisp and sweet substance which is not wood, nor bark, nor pulp, nor seed-pabulum reducible to softness by boiling;—but quite separate substance, for which I do not know that there at present exists any botanical name,—of which, hitherto, I find no general account, and can only myself give so much, on reflection, as that it is crisp and close in texture, and always contains some kind of oil or milk.

35. Again, suppose the arrangement of plants could, with respect to their flowers and fruits, be made approximately complete, they must instantly be broken and reformed by comparison of their stems and leaves. The three creeping families of the Charites,—Rosa, Rubra, and Fragaria,—must then be frankly separated from the elastic Persica and knotty Pomum; of which one wild and lovely species, the hawthorn, is no less notable for the massive accumulation of wood in the stubborn stem of it, than the wild rose for her lovely power of wreathing her garlands at pleasure wherever they are fairest, the stem following them and sustaining, where they will.

36. Thus, as we examine successively each part of any plant, new sisterhoods, and unthought-of fellowships, will be found between the most distant orders; and ravines of unexpected separation open between those otherwise closely allied. Few botanical characters are more definite than the leaf structure illustrated in Plate VI., which has given to one group of the Drosidæ the descriptive name of Ensatæ, (see above, Chapter IX., § 11,) but this conformation would not be wisely permitted to interfere in the least with the arrangement founded on the much more decisive floral aspects of the Iris and Lily. So, in the fifth volume of 'Modern Painters,' the sword-like, or rather rapier-like, leaves of the pine are opposed, for the sake of more vivid realization, to the shield-like leaves of the greater number of inland trees; but it would be absurd to allow this difference any share in botanical arrangement,—else we should find ourselves thrown into sudden discomfiture by the wide-waving and opening foliage of the palms and ferns.

37. But through all the defeats by which insolent endeavors to sum the orders of Creation must be reproved, and in the midst of the successes by which patient insight will be surprised, the fact of the confirmation of species in plants and animals must remain always a miraculous one. What outstretched sign of constant Omnipotence can be more awful, than that the susceptibility to external influences, with the reciprocal power of transformation, in the organs of the plant; and the infinite powers of moral training and mental conception over the nativity of animals, should be so restrained within impassable limits, and by inconceivable laws, that from generation to generation, under all the clouds and revolutions of heaven with its stars, and among all the calamities and convulsions of the Earth with her passions, the numbers and the names of her Kindred may still be counted for her in unfailing truth;—still the fifth sweet leaf unfold for the Rose, and the sixth spring for the Lily; and yet the wolf rave tameless round the folds of the pastoral mountains, and yet the tiger flame through the forests of the night.

CHAPTER XII.

CORA AND KRONOS

1. Of all the lovely wild plants—and few, mountain-bred, in Britain, are other than lovely,—that fill the clefts and crest the ridges of my Brantwood rock, the dearest to me, by far, are the clusters of whortleberry which divide possession of the lower slopes with the wood hyacinth and pervenche. They are personally and specially dear to me for their association in my mind with the woods of Montanvert; but the plant itself, irrespective of all accidental feeling, is indeed so beautiful in all its ways—so delicately strong in the spring of its leafage, so modestly wonderful in the formation of its fruit, and so pure in choice of its haunts, not capriciously or unfamiliarly, but growing in luxuriance through all the healthiest and sweetest seclusion of mountain territory throughout Europe,—that I think I may without any sharp remonstrance be permitted to express for this once only, personal feeling in my nomenclature, calling it in Latin 'Myrtilla Cara,' and in French 'Myrtille Chérie,' but retaining for it in English its simply classic name, 'Blue Whortle.'

2. It is the most common representative of the group of Myrtillæ, which, on reference to our classification, will be found central between the Ericæ and Auroræ. The distinctions between these three families may be easily remembered, and had better be learned before going farther; but first let us note their fellowship. They are all Oreiades, mountain plants; in specialty, they are all strong in stem, low in stature, and the Ericæ and Auroræ glorious in the flush of their infinitely exulting flowers, ("the rapture of the heath"—above spoken of, p. 96.) But all the essential loveliness of the Myrtillæ is in their leaves and fruit: the first always exquisitely finished and grouped like the most precious decorative work of sacred painting; the second, red or purple, like beads of coral or amethyst. Their minute flowers have rarely any general part or power in the colors of mountain ground; but, examined closely, they are one of the chief joys of the traveller's rest among the Alps; and full of exquisiteness unspeakable, in their several bearings and miens of blossom, so to speak. Plate VIII. represents, however feebly, the proud bending back of her head by Myrtilla Regina:58 an action as beautiful in her as it is terrible in the Kingly Serpent of Egypt.

3. The formal differences between these three families are trenchant and easily remembered. The Ericæ are all quatrefoils, and quatrefoils of the most studied and accomplished symmetry; and they bear no berries, but only dry seeds. The Myrtillæ and Auroræ are both Cinqfoil; but the Myrtillæ are symmetrical in their blossom, and the Auroræ unsymmetrical. Farther, the Myrtillæ are not absolutely determinate in the number of their foils, (this being essentially a characteristic of flowers exposed to much hardship,) and are thus sometimes quatrefoil, in sympathy with the Ericæ. But the Auroræ are strictly cinqfoil. These last are the only European form of a larger group, well named 'Azalea' from the Greek ἀζα, dryness, and its adjective ἀζαλέα, dry or parched; and this name must be kept for the world-wide group, (including under it Rhododendron, but not Kalmia,) because there is an under-meaning in the word Aza, enabling it to be applied to the substance of dry earth, and indicating one of the great functions of the Oreiades, in common with the mosses,—the collection of earth upon rocks.

4. Neither the Ericæ, as I have just said, nor Auroræ bear useful fruit; and the Ericæ are named from their consequent worthlessness in the eyes of the Greek farmer; they were the plants he 'tore up' for his bed, or signal-fire, his word for them including a farther sense of crushing or bruising into a heap. The Westmoreland shepherds now, alas! burn them remorselessly on the ground, (and a year since had nearly set the copse of Brantwood on fire just above the house.) The sense of parched and fruitless existence is given to the heaths, with beautiful application of the context, in our English translation of Jeremiah xvii. 6; but I find the plant there named is, in the Septuagint, Wild Tamarisk; the mountains of Palestine being, I suppose, in that latitude, too low for heath, unless in the Lebanon.

5. But I have drawn the reader's thoughts to this great race of the Oreiades at present, because they place for us in the clearest light a question which I have finally to answer before closing the first volume of Proserpina; namely, what is the real difference between the three ranks of Vegetative Humility, and Noblesse—the Herb, the Shrub, and the Tree?

6. Between the herb, which perishes annually, and the plants which construct year after year an increasing stem, there is, of course, no difficulty of discernment; but between the plants which, like these Oreiades, construct for themselves richest intricacy of supporting stem, yet scarcely rise a fathom's height above the earth they gather and adorn,—between these, and the trees that lift cathedral aisles of colossal shade on Andes and Lebanon,—where is the limit of kind to be truly set?

7. We have the three orders given, as no botanist could, in twelve lines by Milton:—

"Then herbs of every leaf, that sudden flow'r'dOp'ning their various colours, and made gayHer bosom smelling sweet; and, these scarce blown,Forth flourish'd thick the clust'ring vine, forth creptThe swelling gourd, up stood the corny reedEmbattel'd in her field; and th' humble shrub,And bush with frizzled hair implicit: lastRose, as in dance, the stately trees, and spreadTheir branches hung with copious fruits, or gemm'dTheir blossoms; with high woods the hills were crown'd;With tufts the valleys and each fountain side;With borders long the rivers."

Only to learn, and be made to understand, these twelve lines thoroughly would teach a youth more of true botany than an entire Cyclopædia of modern nomenclature and description: they are, like all Milton's work, perfect in accuracy of epithet, while consummate in concentration. Exquisite in touch, as infinite in breadth, they gather into their unbroken clause of melodious compass the conception at once of the Columbian prairie, the English cornfield, the Syrian vineyard, and the Indian grove. But even Milton has left untold, and for the instant perhaps unthought of, the most solemn difference of rank between the low and lofty trees, not in magnitude only, nor in grace, but in duration.

8. Yet let us pause before passing to this greater subject, to dwell more closely on what he has told us so clearly,—the difference in Grace, namely, between the trees that rise 'as in dance,' and 'the bush with frizzled hair.' For the bush form is essentially one taken by vegetation in some kind of distress; scorched by heat, discouraged by darkness, or bitten by frost; it is the form in which isolated knots of earnest plant life stay the flux of fiery sands, bind the rents of tottering crags, purge the stagnant air of cave or chasm, and fringe with sudden hues of unhoped spring the Arctic edge of retreating desolation.

On the other hand, the trees which, as in sacred dance, make the borders of the rivers glad with their procession, and the mountain ridges statelier with their pride, are all expressions of the vegetative power in its accomplished felicities; gathering themselves into graceful companionship with the fairest arts and serenest life of man; and providing not only the sustenance and the instruments, but also the lessons and the delights, of that life, in perfectness of order, and unblighted fruition of season and time.

9. 'Interitura'—yet these not to-day, nor to-morrow, nor with the decline of the summer's sun. We describe a plant as small or great; and think we have given account enough of its nature and being. But the chief question for the plant, as for the human creature, is the Number of its days; for to the tree, as to its master, the words are forever true—"As thy Day is, so shall thy Strength be."

10. I am astonished hourly, more and more, at the apathy and stupidity which have prevented me hitherto from learning the most simple facts at the base of this question! Here is this myrtille bush in my hand—its cluster of some fifteen or twenty delicate green branches knitting themselves downwards into the stubborn brown of a stem on which my knife makes little impression. I have not the slightest idea how old it is, still less how old it might one day have been if I had not gathered it; and, less than the least, what hinders it from becoming as old as it likes! What doom is there over these bright green sprays, that they may never win to any height or space of verdure, nor persist beyond their narrow scope of years?

11. And the more I think the more I bewilder myself; for these bushes, which are pruned and clipped by the deathless Gardener into these lowly thickets of bloom, do not strew the ground with fallen branches and faded clippings in any wise,—it is the pining umbrage of the patriarchal trees that tinges the ground and betrays the foot beneath them: but, under the heather and the Alpine rose.—Well, what is under them, then? I never saw, nor thought of looking,—will look presently under my own bosquets and beds of lingering heather-blossom: beds indeed they were only a month since, a foot deep in flowers, and close in tufted cushions, and the mountain air that floated over them rich in honey like a draught of metheglin.