Proserpina, Volume 1: Studies of Wayside Flowers, While the Air was Yet Pure Among the Alps and in the Scotland and England Which My Father KnewRuskin, John
Science
Proserpina, Volume 1: Studies of Wayside Flowers, While the Air was Yet Pure Among the Alps and in the Scotland and England Which My Father Knew
Ruskin, John
Flowers; Plants
I take the pure Latin form, Margarita, instead of Margareta, in memory of
Margherita of Cortona,[40] as well as of the great saint: also the tiny
scatterings and sparklings of the daisy on the turf may remind us of the
old use of the word 'Margaritae,' for the minute particles of the Host
sprinkled on the patina--"Has particulas [Greek: meridas] vocat
Euchologium, [Greek: margaritas] Liturgia Chrysostomi."[41] My young German
readers will, I hope, call the flower Gretschen,--unless they would uproot
the daisies of the Rhine, lest French girls should also count their
love-lots by the Marguerite. I must be so ungracious to my fair young
readers, however, as to warn them that this trial of their lovers is a very
favourable one, for, in nine blossoms out of {146} ten, the leaves of the
Marguerite are odd, so that, if they are only gracious enough to begin with
the supposition that he loves them, they must needs end in the conviction
of it.
23. I am concerned, however, for the present, only with my first or golden
order, of which the Roof-foil, or house-leek, is called in present botany,
Sedum, 'the squatter,' because of its way of fastening itself down on
stones, or roof, as close as it can sit. But I think this an ungraceful
notion of its behaviour; and as its blossoms are, of all flowers, the most
sharply and distinctly star-shaped, I shall call it 'Stella' (providing
otherwise, in due time, for the poor little chickweeds;) and the common
stonecrop will therefore be 'Stella domestica.'
The second tribe, (at present saxifraga,) growing for the most part wild on
rocks, may, I trust, even in Protestant botany, be named Francesca, after
St. Francis of Assisi; not only for its modesty, and love of mountain
ground, and poverty of colour and leaf; but also because the chief element
of its decoration, seen close, will be found in its spots, or stigmata.
In the nomenclature of the third order I make no change.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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