Proserpina Volume II Part 11

[28] This subject is first entered on in the 'Seven Lamps,' and carried forward in the final chapters of 'Modern Painters,'to the point where I hope to take it up for conclusion, in the sections of 'Our Fathers have told us' devoted to the history of the fourteenth century.

[29] See in the first volume, the plates of Sonchus Arvensis and Tussilago Petasites; in the second, Carduus tomentosus and Picris Echioides.

[30] For the sense in which this word is used throughout my writings, see the definition of it in the 52nd paragraph of the 'Queen of the Air,'

comparing with respect to its office in plants, ---- 59-60.

[31] Written in 1880.

[32] The plate of Chamaedrys, D. 448, is also quite right, and not 'too tall and weedlike,' as I have called it at p. 72.

[33] "Stems numerous from the crown of the root-stock, de-c.u.mbent."--S. The effect of the flower upon the ground is always of an extremely upright and separate plant, never appearing in cl.u.s.ters, (I meant, in close ma.s.ses - it forms exquisite little rosy crowds, on ground that it likes) or in any relation to a central root. My epithet 'rosea' does not deny its botanical de- or pro-c.u.mbency.

[34] Compare especially Galeopsis Angustifolia, D. 3031.

[35] Octavo: Paris, Hachette, 1865.

[36] See in the ninth chapter what I have been able, since this sentence was written, to notice on the matter in question.

[37] I envy the French their generalized form of denial, 'Il n'en est rien.'

[38] 'Sensiblement invariable;' 'unchanged, _so far as we can see,_' or to general sense; microscopic and minute change not being considered.

[39] Moreover, the confusion between vertical and horizontal sections in pp. 46, 47, is completed by the misprint of vertical for horizontal in the third line of p. 43, and of horizontal for vertical in the fifth line from bottom of p. 46; while Figure 45 is to me totally unintelligible, this being, as far as can be made out by the lettering, a section of a tree stem which has its marrow on the outside!

[40] "Try a bit of rhubarb" (says A, who sends me a pretty drawing of rhubarb pith); but as rhubarb does not grow into wood, inapplicable to our present subject; and if we descend to annual plants, rush pith is the thing to be examined.

[41] I am too lazy now to translate, and shall trust to the chance of some remnant, among my readers, of cla.s.sical study, even in modern England.

[42] '_Or_ woody tissue,' suggests A. It is 'and' in Balfour.

[43] Terms not used now, but others quite as bad: Cuticle, Epidermis, Cortical layer, Periderm, Cambium, Ph.e.l.loderm--six hard words for 'BARK,'

says my careful annotator. "Yes; and these new six to be changed for six newer ones next year, no doubt."

[44] "At first the vessels are pervious and full of _fluid_, but by degrees thickening layers are deposited, which contract their ca.n.a.l."--BALFOUR.

[45] I cannot better this earlier statement, which in beginning 'Proserpina,' I intended to form a part of that work; but, as readers already in possession of it in the original form, ought not to be burdened with its repet.i.tion, I shall republish those chapters as a supplement, which I trust may be soon issued.

[46] "'Diachyma' is parenchyma in the middle of a leaf!" (Balfour, Art.

137.) Henceforward, if I ever make botanical quotations, I shall always call parenchyma, By-tis; prosenchyma, To-tis; and diachyma, Through-tis, short for By-tissue, To-tissue, and Through-tissue--then the student will see what all this modern wisdom comes to!