XII. ATHENAIDES.
Eng. ATHENAID. Fr. ATHENAIDE.
Olea. 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.[[56]] 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.[[57]] 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,[[58]] 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,[[59]] 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.