NOTES
NOTE I
ON THE VIOLA OF THE ROMANS
I contributed the following note on "The Viola of the Romans," to the Gardeners' Chronicle of September 26, 1874, as I found a correspondent had been adopting Lord Stanhope's views.
Mr. Ruskin in his Queen of the Air wrote, "I suspect that the flower whose name we translate 'Violet' was in truth an Iris" (he is speaking of the Greek ion, but the Viola no doubt is whatever the ion was).
In Lord Stanhope's Miscellanies, second series, which was published in 1872, a paper, which had been previously (in 1830) read before the Society of Antiquaries, treats of the "Viola of the Ancients."
Lord Stanhope identifies it with the Iris, and on the following grounds: —
1. Because when riding through Sicily in the winter of 1825, he saw many Irises and no Violets, and heard that the country people called the Iris Viola.
2. Because Pliny speaks of Violæ luteæ, whereas there are no Violets of that colour.
3. Because Pliny also describes the Violet as growing in sunny and barren places ("apricis et macris locis"), whereas really Violets always grow in the shade.
4. Because he speaks of the Violet as springing from a fleshy root-stock ("ab radice carnoso"), whereas the Violet root is fibrous.
5. Because Ovid couples the Violet with the Poppy and the Lily as flowers which, when broken off, hang their heads to the ground.
I need not say much as to Lord Stanhope's not finding Violets in Sicily in winter, for the question is, whether he would not find them in Italy in spring. Nor does the fact of the Sicilian peasants speaking of the Iris as a Violet disturb me any more than when I hear a Scotch peasant speak of the "Harebell" as a "Bluebell."
The real authority is Pliny, and Pliny settles the question completely. He says (I quote for convenience from Bohn's translated edition): – "Next after the Roses and the Lilies, the Violet is held in the highest esteem. Of this there are several varieties, the purple, the yellow, and the white, all of them reproduced from plants, like the Cabbage. The Purple Violet, which springs up spontaneously in sunny spots with a thin meagre soil, has larger petals than the others, springing immediately from the root, which is of a fleshy substance. This Violet has a name, too, distinct from the other wild kinds, being called 'ion,' and from it the ianthine cloth takes its name."
He goes on to say that of cultivated kinds the Yellow Violet is held in most esteem. He speaks then of the Tusculan and Marine Violet as having broader petals than the others, but being less sweet, while the Calathian Violet is also without scent.
A little farther on he describes the Iris itself, and says "the stem of this plant is a cubit in length and erect, the flower being of various colours like the rainbow, to which circumstance it is indebted for its name." It is, he adds, a plant of a caustic nature, and the root is used in perfumery and medicine, but the flower is never employed for garlands.
After this, perhaps, it is needless to add that of course Lord Stanhope is mistaken in supposing that there are no Yellow Violets (he may find any number half-way up the Rigi), or that Violets do not often grow in sunny and sterile places, or that the Purple Violet has not a fleshy root-stock.
That the Sweet Violet, which Pliny says was used for wreath-making, was generally cultivated is certain from Horace's
"Tum violaria et
Myrtus, et omnis copia narium
Spargent olivetis odorem."
Odes, ii. 15.
Then, again, the Sweet Violet was used for the flavouring of wine – the "vinum violatum."
There are other passages in which Pliny speaks of the sweetness of the Violet. He says it is sweetest at a distance, and that it has no scent except in the flower itself.
There can be no doubt then whatever (I conceive) that the Greeks, when they spoke of the "ion," or the Romans of the "Viola," generally meant our Violet, and that the Violet-wreaths were made from this familiar flower.
Still the name was perhaps loosely used, and it is highly probable that the flower to which Ovid refers, in the passage which Lord Stanhope quotes, was the Snowflake or Leucoion (literally, "White Violet").
NOTE II
ON THE AZALEA VISCOSA
I was much pleased to see my observations on the Azalea as a fly-catcher confirmed by a subsequent paragraph (October 3, 1874,) in the Gardeners' Chronicle. It is interesting, and I now reprint it.
Azalea Viscosa a Fly-catcher
Under this heading Mr. W. W. Bailey gives the following observations in the current number of the American Naturalist: —
"The many curious observations published of late in regard to vegetable fly-catchers have opened my eyes to such phenomena as are presented in my forest walks. As is well known to all botanists, our sweet swamp Azalea (Azalea viscosa) has its corolla covered on the outside with innumerable clammy and glandular hairs. Each hair is a prolongation of the cuticle, and is surmounted by a purple and globular band. In the bud these hairs appear to cover the whole surface of the flower, but when the corolla expands they are seen to occupy the midrib of the petals as well as the tube of the corolla. These glandular hairs are efficacious fly-catchers, but what the object is in thus securing insect prey I will not pretend to state. I have been amusing myself, if any such apparently cruel occupation can be considered entertaining, in watching the capture of flies by the Azaleas. When I first brought the flowers home, many small insects, as winged ants, were entrapped amidst the hairs. These have remained alive several days, still vainly struggling for freedom. As the house-flies are abundant in my room, it occurred to me that I might extirpate the pests, and at the same time learn something of the process of insect-catching. I have not noticed that the powerful fragrance of the blossoms attracts the house-fly, although I have no doubt that it does the smaller insects. It seemed to be accidental when the house-flies were captured. I exposed a number of buds and fully-opened blossoms on a sunny window-sill thronged with flies. It was not many minutes before I had several captives. A mere touch of a fly's leg to the glutinous hairs was sufficient for his detention. A struggle only made matters worse, as other legs were by this means brought in contact with the glands. These emit long glairy threads, which fasten to the hairs of the flies' legs. They may be drawn out to a great length and tenuity, still retaining their strength. If two buds are pressed together, and then drawn apart, innumerable threads may be seen to bind them. There is a complete network of them between the various glands. They will confine the strongest fly; he is at once held like Gulliver among the Lilliputians. Under the microscope the legs of the fly are seen to be covered with the secretion, which is perfectly white and transparent. In one attempt to escape, a house-fly lifted a flower bodily from the window-sill, perhaps a quarter of an inch, but at once sank back exhausted amidst the hairs. One, after long efforts, escaped, but seemed incapable of using its legs; it flew away readily. In one instance I have found the dried remains of a small insect embedded amidst the hairs, but cannot say whether its juices were in any way absorbed by the plant. If such assimilation takes place, what is its purpose? Can this phenomenon of fly-catching be accidental, or is some nice purpose concealed in it? I merely state the facts as I have observed them; perhaps others can supply further information."
NOTE III
ON THE SOLANUM TRIBE
It is very curious to compare the two following passages of two great masters of style – Ruskin and Michelet – both writing of the tribe to which belongs the Tomato. Ruskin, in The Queen of the Air, p. 91, says: —
"Next, in the Potato, we have the scarcely innocent underground stem of one of a tribe set aside for evil, having the deadly nightshade for its queen, and including the henbane, the witch's mandrake, and the worst natural curse of modern civilisation – tobacco. And the strange thing about this tribe is, that though thus set aside for evil, they are not a group distinctly separate from those that are happier in function. There is nothing in other tribes of plants like the form of the bean blossom; but there is another family with forms and structure closely connected with this venomous one. Examine the purple and yellow bloom of the common hedge Nightshade; – you will find it constructed exactly like some of the forms of the Cyclamen; and getting this clue, you will find at last the whole poisonous and terrible group to be – sisters of the Primulas.
"The nightshades are, in fact, primroses with a curse upon them, and a sign set in their petals by which the deadly and condemned flower may always be known from the innocent one, – that the stamens of the nightshades are between the lobes, and of the primulas opposite the lobes of the corolla."
Now for M. Michelet. In La Sorcière, p. 119, he writes of the herbs used by the witches: —
"Ce que nous savons le mieux de leur médecine, c'est qu'elles employaient beaucoup, pour les usages les plus divers, pour calmer, pour stimuler, une grande famille de plantes, équivoques, fort dangereuses, qui rendirent les plus grands services. On les nomme avec raison, les Consolantes (Solanées).
"Famille immense et populaire, dont la plupart des espèces sont surabondantes, sous nos pieds, aux haies, partout. Famille, tellement nombreuse, qu'un seul de ses genres a huit cents espèces. Rien de plus facile à trouver, rien de plus vulgaire. Mais ces plantes sont la plupart d'un emploi fort hasardeux. Il a fallu de l'audace pour en préciser les doses, l'audace peut-être du génie.
"Prenons par en bas l'échelle ascendante de leurs énergies. Les premières sont tout simplement potagères et bonnes à manger (les aubergines, les tomates, mal appelées pommes d'amour). D'autres de ces innocentes sont le calme et la douceur même, les molènes (bouillon blanc), si utiles aux fomentations.
"Vous rencontrez au dessus une plante déjà suspecte, que plusieurs croyaient un poison, la plante miellée d'abord, amère ensuite, qui semble dire le mot de Jonathas: 'J'ai mangé un peu de miel, et voilà pourquoi je meurs.' Mais cette mort est utile, c'est l'amortissement de la douleur. La douce-amère, c'est son nom, dut être le premier essai de l'homœopathie hardie, qui, peu à peu, s'éleva aux plus dangereux poisons. La légère irritation, les picotements qu'elle donne purent la désigner pour remède des maladies dominantes de ces temps, celles de la peau."
Speaking of magical herbs reminds one of the "moly," which Mercury gives to Ulysses, and which enabled him to withstand the enchantments of Circe. This "moly" with its white blossom is particularly well known to me, for, when I first came to my present house, the wood near the lodge was so full of it that it seemed as if a dinner of onions was for ever being cooked: I found it exceedingly hard to eradicate. "Moly" is none other than the Garlic, and Circe had apparently the same objection to it as had the wife of the Merchant of Bagdad in the Arabian Nights.
By the way, what could Mr. Tennyson have been thinking of when he describes his lotus-eaters as
"Propt on beds of amaranth and moly"?
Another poet too, now a well-known divine, once spoke of
" – souls that pure and holy
Live and love and prosper well,
Leaning aye on myrrh and moly,
Melilote and asphodel."
NOTE IV
ON THE SUNFLOWER OF THE CLASSICS
I have been much puzzled to know what was the Sunflower of classical story, – in other words, what was the flower into which, according to the legend, Clytie was so sadly changed.
I had always supposed, as nearly every one supposes, that it was what we call the Sunflower (the Helianthus), with its upright stem and large radiated disc. But, first of all, I found, as a matter of fact, that the Helianthus does not follow the course of the Sun, and that various blossoms of the same plant may at the same time be facing in different directions. And then I found, what of course was fatal, that the Helianthus is not a European plant at all, and first came to us from North America.
Having consulted Notes and Queries in vain, I determined to look into the matter more closely, as it seemed to me a rather curious question.
If the Sunflower of the Classics was not the Helianthus, and if this, as I imagine, only obtained its name from its flowers, which in some way resemble the old pictures of the Sun, could it be the plant we know as Heliotrope? The name of course means "turning Sunward," but again the name is no guide to us; the scented flowers of the Heliotrope do not, so far as I know, turn to the Sun, and in any case the plant is of Peruvian and not of European origin.
I then fell back upon the classical authors themselves. I got nothing very distinct from Theophrastus, and moreover it is Ovid, to whom we chiefly owe our knowledge of the story. He tells us that when her lover Phœbus left her, poor Clytie "still gazed on the face of the departing god, and bent her looks on him. It is said that she remained rooted to the ground; of her fresh bloom ('color'), part is turned by livid pallor into bloodless leaves, on part a blush remains, and a flower most like a Violet has covered all her face. Held firmly by the root, she still turns to the Sun she loves, and, changed herself, she keeps her love unchanged."
Pliny says the Heliotropium "turns with the Sun, in cloudy weather even, so great is its sympathy with that luminary. At night, as though in regret, it closes its blue flowers."
What then can this flower be, a blue flower, which turns towards the Sun?
I next examined the magnificent volumes of Sibthorp's Flora Græca. There is there indeed a European "Heliotropium," "Heliotropium supinum," but this surely cannot be the flower of Clytie; the blossom is quite insignificant ("flore minimo") and white. Then there are two Crotons (Tinctorium and Villosum) which are also locally called Heliotropium, and which grow in Crete and Lemnos ("ex quâ paratur Tournesol"), but their flowers again are hardly more noticeable and are yellow.
Foiled at every point, I thought I would at least see what in England was the traditionary Sunflower, but I am hardly any wiser.
Gerarde says that Valerius Cordius calls the dwarf Cistus Helianthemum, and Solis flos or Sunne-flower. He quotes Pliny as calling it also "Heliocalliden, or the Beautie of the Sunne;" and adds, "which if it be the Sunneflower, yet there is another of the same name, but which may be taken for the right it is hard to tell (but that experience teacheth us), seeing Plinie is so breefe."
Gerarde has also a chapter on the "Tornesole," and says, "there be five sorts of Tornesole, differing one from another in many notable points, as in greatnesse and smallnesse, in colour of flowers, in forme and shape," and then he describes the varieties of "Tornesoles" or "Heliotropium."
He says, "the Græcians call it Heliotropium;" – "it is named Heliotropium, not because it is turned about at the daily motion of the sunne, but by reason it flowreth in the summer solstice, at which time the sunne being farthest gone from the equinoctiale circle, returneth to the same;" but he adds that the French and Italians call it "Turnesol," and says, "it is also called Herba Clitiæ, whereof the poet hath these verses,
"'Herba velut Clitiæ semper petit obvia solem,
Sic pia mens Christum, quo prece spectet, habet.'"
Cowley's Sunflower is called in a foot-note Chrysanthemum Peruvianum, but is probably a form of Helianthus. The flower is supposed to speak, and claims to be a child of the Sun, for,
"My orb-like aspect bound with rays
The very picture of his face displays;
and again,
"I still adore my sire with prostrate face,
Turn where he turns, and all his motions trace."
So after all I am as much in the dark as ever. Was the mysterious flower, as some suggest, a Calendula (Marygold), or an Aster? I cannot tell, and only know that neither answers the description. On the whole then I am disposed to wonder whether either Ovid or Pliny knew much more about the matter than ourselves, and I may some day come to doubt whether Clytie was ever turned into a Sunflower at all.13
NOTE V
FLOWERS AND THE POETS
Both the flowers of the garden and what Campbell calls "wildings of nature" have had their bards, and in the case of certain flowers the association with a poet is so strong that the sight of the flower will recall the verse. Of course this is chiefly so as regards the less familiar flowers. No one, not even Sappho, has an exclusive possession in the Rose; but who would care to dispute Shelley's right to the Sensitive Plant, or Wordsworth's to the lesser Celandine? The poets, however, have sometimes more of a love than a knowledge of plants, and Milton talks of the "twisted Eglantine" in confusion between the Sweetbrier and the Honeysuckle.
It is interesting to see the different ways in which flowers are treated by the poets. Shakspeare, no doubt, loved them in his way, but after all, there are but few passages in which flowers are used otherwise than as an illustration or an emblem. There are, indeed, Titania's flowered bank, and Perdita's garden, – redolent of herbs and gay with Violets, Primroses, and Daffodils, but where no Gillyflower was allowed to grow, – and poor Ophelia's melancholy blossoms, and the song in Love's Labour's Lost, and that is nearly all. Shakspeare often speaks of Roses, but almost always, excepting in the scene at the Temple Gardens, by way of compliment or comparison. The musk-rose, indeed, appears in the Midsummer Night's Dream, and this Rose, which is now quite unknown to most of us, was evidently a favourite in Elizabethan gardens, for Bacon says of it that, next the white double Violet (which is also almost lost), the musk-rose "yeelds the sweetest smell in the aire."
But Shakspeare's favourite flowers seem to have been the Primrose, the Violet, the Pansy, and, above all, the Cowslip. He must often have recalled his boyish walks in spring along the Avon, and remembered how the low-lying fields of Stratford were all sweet and yellow with the Cowslip. And so it is within a Cowslip's bell that Ariel hides, and Cowslips are Titania's pensioners on whose ears the fairies must hang pearls, and when the fields of France are desolated the "freckled Cowslip" does not grow there any more, and the mole on Imogen's breast is "like the crimson drops i' the bottom of a Cowslip."
Before passing from Shakspeare, I should like to call the attention of the directors or managers of New Place to the absurdity of the garden, which they are supposed to keep up in remembrance of Shakspeare. I chanced to visit it a summer or two ago, and, instead of finding an Elizabethan garden with flowers associated with Shakspeare and his times, I saw little but a wretched ribbon border of starveling Calceolarias, scrubby Pelargoniums, and miserable Perillas. Such a garden is a mockery, and would be more suggestive and more pathetic if left wild to the growths of nature.
If Milton enjoyed more completely the luxury of gardens, it is safe to say that he knew less of separate flowers than Shakspeare. He not only speaks of the Eglantine as "twisted," but he calls the Cowslip "wan," the Violet "glowing," and the Reed "balmy." He makes Roses and Crocuses bloom together in Paradise, and Hyacinths and Roses in the gardens of Hesperus, while Lycid's "laureate hearse" is to be strewn with Primrose and Woodbine, Daffodil and Jessamine. Paradise and the gardens of Hesperus are, of course, ideal gardens, which may be superior to our times and seasons, but the same excuse cannot hold good for the flowers of the "Lycidas," and it is tolerably clear that Milton's special knowledge was somewhat vague. But, on the other hand, what a sensuous pleasure he has in gardens! He is not thinking of Elizabethan gardens, but such gardens as he may have seen in Italy, or read of in Tasso or Boccaccio. The west winds fling around the cedared alleys sweet smells of Nard and Cassia, or the covert is of inwoven shade of Laurel and Myrtle fenced by Acanthus and odorous shrubs. The rich rhythm of his lines seems to breathe perfume and delight.
And the reason why, in later years at least, the scent rather than the sight of flowers was dear to Milton, is known to all of us, for has he not himself told us how,
"Not to me returns
Day, or the sweet approach of ev'n or morn,
Or sight of vernal bloom or summer's rose?"
He could still drink in the perfumed air of gardens, though only memory could recall the form and colour of those flowers, which he would never see again.14
Only one English poet has surpassed Milton in his love of gardens. Like Milton he probably knew little of particular flowers, but he revelled in the scent and colour of Roses and of Lilies. It is Andrew Marvell; who, it is to be feared, is far less remembered than he deserves to be. Marvell's gardens are all of the true English character, and his description of Lord Fairfax's, though somewhat quaint and fanciful, has many touches as natural as they are graceful. That the flowers should stand on parade, like soldiers, through the day, and fold up at night in tents, in which bees remain as sentinels, is a far-fetched conceit enough; but nothing can be better than many of his lines. Was it his own garden at Highgate of which he thought, when he spoke of the garden in which Sylvio's fawn was wont to hide?
"I have a garden of my own,
But so with roses overgrown
And lilies, that you would it guess
To be a little wilderness."
Cowley's love of a garden was of quite another kind. He cared about it as a horticulturist, and knew the various plants and their qualities; but he never luxuriated in it like Milton or like Marvell. His elaborate poem is interesting, if only to show the flowers that were cultivated in his day, and it is curious to find the Tomato (or love-apple) grown for beauty and not for use, and the Canna Indica, which is hardly common with us even now, mentioned as among the ordinary flowers of his time. On the whole, however, there are very few lines of Cowley about flowers (we are not speaking of anything else) which are worth quoting or remembering.
Herrick's use of flowers is very different. He loved them, no doubt, and is always talking about them, and making them useful.
"He twists his coronals of fancy
Out of all blossoms,"
if I may so misapply a line from Lord Houghton's Letters of Youth. He makes moralities out of Daffodils, and compliments from Carnations, and warnings from Rosebuds. Charming as many of his poems about flowers are, it is impossible not to feel that the motive of the poem is not the flower itself, but the Anthea or Sappho or Julia, to whom the flower is to teach a lesson of the power of love or the uncertainty of life.
It is, of course, impossible to speak of all the poets who have written about flowers, for probably the list would include them all; but the five I have mentioned are perhaps the most characteristic, though there are memorable lines in Chaucer, Spenser, Burns, and Keats, and more especially in Wordsworth.
From Byron there is singularly little to quote; but no English poet has given so perfect a description of a garden as has Shelley in "The Sensitive Plant." How delicately he paints each flower, and how he makes us see them all, as we tread with him
"The sinuous paths of lawn and of moss
Which led through the garden along and across;
Some open at once to the sun and the breeze,
Some lost among bowers of blossoming trees."
Of living English poets perhaps Mr. Tennyson alone shows any real love for flowers. And this love is scarcely shown so much in the well-known song in "Maud" as by little touches here and there – the "long green box of mignonette" which the miller's daughter has set on her casement edge, – the "wild marsh-marygold" which "shines like fire in swamps" for the happy May Queen, – or the water-lilies which blossom round the island of Shalott. And who can forget the stanza in "In Memoriam"? —
"Bring orchis, bring the foxglove spire,
The little speedwell's darling blue,
Deep tulips dasht with fiery dew,
Laburnums, dropping-wells of fire."
Of American poets, Mr. Longfellow has, rather strangely, written nothing very memorable about flowers; but there are some pretty verses of Mr. Bryant's, and an occasional good line of Mr. Emerson's, as where he speaks of the Gentian as "blue-eyed pet of blue-eyed lover."
As we once again look round upon the poets that have sung, it is clear that their favourite flowers have been the Rose and the Daisy, – the one recalling all the delights of the summer garden, the other all the freshness of the open field, – the one loved for its beauty, the other cherished for its constancy.
"The rose has but a summer reign,
The daisy never dies;"
says Montgomery, in one of the best known of his poems. Cowslips, Violets, Daffodils, and Pansies are probably the next favourites. Painters have done more for Lilies than the poets have; and Carnations and the later flowers of the year have never made much place for themselves in the poetry of England. The English garden of to-day still awaits its laureate, and, except where, in Mr. Allingham's "Therania,"
"Vase and plot burn scarlet, gold and azure,"
I scarcely know of a description of modern "bedding-out," and sincerely hope that the present fashion may disappear before the thankless task is undertaken.