XVIII
A BOTANOPHILIST'S JOURNAL
He was the attorney of the indigenous plants, and owned to a preference of the weeds to the imported plants, as of the Indian to the civilized man.—Emerson.
I have referred several times to Henry Thoreau, of Concord, in whose Journal a great deal is said about wildflowers; and as the volumes are not easily accessible to English readers it may be worth while to select therefrom a few of the more interesting passages. In all that he wrote on the subject Thoreau appears less as the botanist than the flower-lover; indeed, he expressly observes that he himself comes under the head of the "Botanophilists," as Linnæus termed them; viz. those who record various facts about flowers, but not from a strictly scientific standpoint. "I never studied botany," he said, "and do not to-day, systematically; the most natural system is so artificial. I wanted to know my neighbours, if possible; to get a little nearer to them." So great was his zest in cultivating this floral acquaintance that, as he tells us, he often visited a plant four or five miles from Concord half a dozen times within a fortnight, in order to note its time of flowering.
Books he found, in general, unsatisfactory. "I asked a learned and accurate naturalist," he says, "who is at the same time the courteous guardian of a public library, to direct me to those works which contained the more particular popular account, or biography, of particular flowers—for I had trusted that each flower had had many lovers and faithful describers in past times—but he informed me that I had read all; that no one was acquainted with them, they were only catalogued like his books." It was the human aspect of the flower that Thoreau craved; and he was therefore disappointed when he saw "pages about some fair flower's qualities as food or medicine, but perhaps not a sentence about its significance to the eye; as if the cowslip were better for 'greens' than for yellows." Thus he complained that botanies are "the prose of flowers," instead of what they ought to be, the poetry. He made an exception, however, in favour of old Gerarde's Herball.
His admirable though quaint descriptions are, to my mind, greatly superior to the modern more scientific ones. He describes not according to rule, but to his natural delight in the plants. He brings them vividly before you, as one who has seen and delighted in them. It is almost as good as to see the plants themselves. His leaves are leaves; his flowers, flowers; his fruit, fruit. They are green, and coloured, and fragrant. It is a man's knowledge added to a child's delight. . . . How much better to describe your object in fresh English words rather than in these conventional Latinisms!"
Linnæus, too, "the man of flowers," as he calls him, is praised by Thoreau. "If you would read books on botany, go to the fathers of the science. Read Linnæus at once, and come down from him as far as you please. I lost much time in reading the florists. It is remarkable how little the mass of those interested in botany are acquainted with Linnæus."
Thoreau's manner of botanizing was, like most of his habits, somewhat singular. His vasculum was his straw-hat. "I never used any other," he writes, "and when some whom I visited were evidently surprised at its dilapidated look, as I deposited it on their front entry-table, I assured them it was not so much my hat as my botany-box." With this vasculum he professed himself more than content.
I am inclined to think that my hat, whose lining is gathered in midway so as to make a shelf, is about as good a botany-box as I could have; and there is something in the darkness and the vapours that arise from the head—at least, if you take a bath—which preserves flowers through a long walk. Flowers will frequently come fresh out of this botany-box at the end of the day, though they have had no sprinkling.