Botanists From England

"(Bee-Balm; Oswego Tea). Robust plants with brilliant flowers, often grown on the banks of streams and lakes for the colour they impart to the surroundings. In masses they form striking effects …"

"' ( Señorita Water-lily] is a of a delicate lavender-blue shade with golden s tipped with blue. It is very free, but the flowers are small, rarely more than 3 or 4 in. across. It hails from Mexico and Texas."

"Aquilegia (') .—The dainty columbines are almost too well known to need description and there can be few who will not appreciated their charms in the border. Planted in groups about 12 inches apart, they are a joy from May to July and associate well with subjects such as ', s, , s, ' or ferns ..."

"' WATER STAR GRASS C. An uncommon little aquatic with bronzed grassy foliage and small bright yellow flowers lying flat on the water surface. It is easy to grow, does not attract algae and merits more general cultivation. Tropical America."

"Neptunia plena A warm-water aquatic of great charm with opposite pairs of finely pinnate leaves, reminiscent of '. Like that plant they are sensitive to the touch."

"are native to Central and South Africa, so that it is hardly surprising to find them real sun lovers in the garden."

"The sometimes attacks in natural lakes, destroying the roots or eating the hearts of the flowers. Trapping and shooting are the only remedies."

"Being rich in farinaceous matter s are cultivated in the Orient for food. The seeds—known as s—can be eaten raw or can be used in soups and various Japanese and Chinese dishes. ... In the Orient the plant is held sacred to Buddha who is thought to have been born in the heart of a Lotus blossom. The comprises a Lotus flower, the and two crossed Palm branches. Incidentally Hindus compare their country to the Lotus, the petals suggesting Central India and the leaves the surrounding provinces."

"(C. esculenta of ). A robust species, growing about 2 ft. high, with large dark blue flowers, the irregularly spaces segments of which are twisted and wither independently. Western North America."

"The spectacular works in this book, all exemplars from Dr Shirley Sherwood's incomparable collection of contemporary botanical art, highlight an artistic practice that infuses accuracy with artistry, and deep love of plants, to create new works that rank with the greatest of the eighteenth and nineteenth century."

"Hungarian minstrels boarded the train at , played vigorously for more than two hours and finished with the ', with the chef singing a vociferous solo. The passengers were received by at his new . managed to arrange an exclusive interview with him, which he glowingly recounted in '. After the euphoria of the inaugural trip the settled into a regular routine."

"Undoubtedly the major edible —, , , , elephant yam, and —could play a more important part in the food production and economies of countries if they received more attention from s and agronomists."

"There are only three s in which date back to the 17th century: (1621), (1670) and the (1673). (, the country's only other Royal Botanic Garden, began in 1759.)"

"The Hebrew name for is , meaning 'sweetness', from which we get the . Myrtle also symbolizes love. Its use in s may have come from ancient Greece and Rome or from the . There is a tradition that the sprigs of myrtle in the bouquet should be planted in the newly weds' garden and if they root then the marriage will be a success."

"When chosen for their color and texture, herbs need not look out of place among other s. Popular garden plants, such as , s, s, and are easily accommodated in a ."

"An excellent teacher and a brilliant botanist with a wide range of interest, encouraged students to explore and record the , and awarded a gold medal annually for the best (collection of pressed plants)."

"A next big step forward was the building of the Shirley Sherwood Gallery by my family. It opened in the in 2008, and stands next to the Marianne North Gallery. Since then there have been over 50 exhibitions, always with some contributions from my collection and Kew's archives. I had been commissioning and acquiring paintings since 1990 and by 2018 had more than than a thousand works from artists working all over the world. Another milestone was that by 2018 we counted over one million visitors to the Shirley Sherwood Gallery. It has become the central focus of botanical art in the world today and the footfall has increased dramatically."

"Onc. Barkerii.—A remarkably handsome dwarf Orchid from Mexico; the flowers are very large; the sepals and petals rich brown barred with yellow; the lip a bright yellow, about an inch and a half across. It produces its branching spikes of flower during the dull months of winter, which greatly enhances it value, and it lasts six weeks in bloom."

"In the order of the universe we find that the use of mosses is primarily to other and more . They are spread at the roots of trees, and by their depth keeps the warmth about them in winter, and the moisture in summer, which are necessary to their growth. But when they grow on their trunks and branches, mosses injure trees, by clogging their breathing pores. We next find that mosses are useful to the insect tribe, countless numbers of which find homes among their branches, and roam about in their shades as in mighty forests, and look with their thousand eyes upon the wonders of their gauzy leaves, and sun their wings of purple and gold, and burnish their shining armour upon the polished columns of their urns. Over her nest the constructs a dome of moss; and ascending higher yet, we find the bird's nest "built of wool and hay and moss.""

"The finest example of a tropical conservatory we ever saw is the one at , the property of , at the time we saw it the plants were in excellent condition, reflecting great credit on Mr. Speed, the head gardener; the fine s and s give it a splendid tropical effect, and the beauties of all are considerably enhanced by a gallery, which thus enables the visitor to inspect the plants above and below, and no large plant house should be erected without a structure of this kind."

"In the of Linnæus mosses were placed among the . It is true that the various parts of their are so small as only to be fully examined by the help of a , but the flower and fruit as a whole may on most species be easily seen."

"are among the most beautiful of Orchids, many of them uniting every good quality that a plant can possess,—rich, evergreen, and regularly-curved foliage,—a graceful habit,—flowers of peculiar elegance. ... These plants are of easy culture, and if properly attended to are seldom out of order. They are found in the hottest parts of India and other warm countries, growing on the branches of trees, generally on such as overhang streams of water; and to grow them in anything like perfection, the climate in which they grow wild must be imitated as nearly as possible."

"The rusts are highly specialised obligate parasites of s, s and s. The cereal rusts are amon the most destructive pathogens of economic plants ..."

"There seems to be one quality of mind which seems to be of special and extreme advantage in leading him to make discoveries. It was the power of never letting exceptions go unnoticed."

"The love of experiment was very strong in him, and I can remember the way he would say, "I shan't be easy till I have tried it," as if an outside force were driving him. He enjoyed experimenting much more than work which only entailed reasoning, and when he was engaged on one of his books which required argument and the marshalling of facts, he felt experimental work to be a rest or holiday."

"' is a large genus of which one of the best known species is ', a destructive parasite of , but including also species parasitic on economically valuable trees, such as , and many s."

"Worthington Smith was an important member of the group of archaeologists whose work established as a discipline in Britain. He observed, meticulously recorded and published traces of some of the best sites ever to come to light in England. While his overview of the period has inevitably not stood the test of time, his publications remain of great value for the factual information they contain, and for his fine illustrations. Most of his artefact collections also survive, well-documented in spite of the loss of many of his written notes, and these too are important."

"For books he had no respect, but merely considered them as tools to be worked with. Thus he did not bind them, and even when a paper book fell to pieces from use, as happened to Müller’s ‘Befruchtung,’ he preserved it from complete dissolution by putting a metal clip over its back. In the same way he would cut a heavy book in half, to make it more convenient to hold. He used to boast that he had made Lyell publish the second edition of one of his books in two volumes, instead of in one, by telling him how ho had been obliged to cut it in half. Pamphlets were often treated even more severely than books, for he would tear out, for the sake of saving room, all the pages except the one that interested him, The consequence of all this was, that his library was not ornamental, but was striking from being so evidently a working collection of books."

"1 Hypogeous are those soil fungi which produce macroscopic partially or completely embedded in soil or humus. While showing a superficial similarity correlated with habitat, they include members of the , and . 2 The edible s have been known from very early times, and speculations as to their nature are found in Greek and Roman literature. Other groups, which are not edible, were described later. The monographs of (1831, 1842) and & (1851) are the starting-point for all modern work on these fungi."

"When potatoes are destroyed by parasitic in the autumn, it does not always happen that the parasite is the dreaded putrefactive fungus of the murrain, named ' Another highly destructive fungus, named ', , is sometimes equally damaging to potatoes with the Peronospora itself. The name Fusisporium refers to the spindle-shaped crescent form of the spores,—fusus a spindle ; Solani of course, refers to the genus to which the potato belongs."

"A fresh attempt to survey the whole field and correlate the problems of nutrition presented by mycorrhiza plants with those in parasites and insectivorous plants was made by at the opening of the new century (Stahl, 1900). This paper, the most comprehensive study of mycorrhiza from the biological point of view since the publication of 's theory of in trees, has been freely quoted in the text-books and is probably one of the best-known contributions to the literature of the subject. Two aspects of Stahl's work demand attention: firstly, the new hypothesis put forward by him to explain the distribution of fungus infection in s and its beneficial effect upon the hosts, and secondly, the character of the experimental evidence offered in support of his opinions."

"The mere barbarians, the chippers of rude weapons and tools of stone, who lived in North Britain at the time of the Roman conquest, — the men who had been driven north, ages before the Roman occupation, by from the mainland of Europe, are quite recent as compared with the far-off time when primeval savages lived in what is now Britain. The barbarians who preceded the ancient civilisations of , , and are modern as compared with the remote antiquity of the savages whose bones, weapons, and tools are here described and sketched."

"and others give us such attractive accounts of the charms of , the quantity of nourishment contained in them, and the desirability of out better appreciation of their excellencies, that we set about making ourselves acquainted with them with hearty good will."

"Travellers penetrating to the find ' flourishing alone, and spreading its light s in a region of "thick-ribbed ice;" ' was found by on ; and in and Iceland, where there is scarcely light enough for the humblest vegetables to flourish, ' not only endures the sleet and bitter cold, and spreads its blossoms under such inhospitable circumstances, but actually ripens abundance of seed."

"Ability to recognize and identify the commoner s is of some practical interest and importance. ... a few are injurious or even violently poisonous. Of these last, the scarlet Fly Agaric (') ... with a nearly related species, the Death Cap or Death's Angel fungus (') ... with a pale greenish-yellow , common and abundant species about and trees and in woodlands formed by them, are two of the most notorious. The toadstools of both these species, especially those of the latter, contain virulent poisons and if cooked and eaten in the rest condition, are among the most deadly and dangerous poisons known; the Panther Agaric, ', a toadstool with a brown spotted cap, is also common in such woodlands and also poisonous. It is interesting to note that the fleshy caps of these poisonous toadstools are eaten with impunity by s."

"The first stage coach passed through on Monday, April 12th, 1742. ... , presented great difficulties for coaches, seven or eight horses were required to take the coach from Brewer's Hill Road to the top of the hill."

"... the is extremely tolerant of . It can grow quite well with as much as 1.5% of salt in the sand and will tolerate up to 6%. Moreover, it will endure quite prolonged inundation by a high tide."

"It is tempting to assume that the process of natural selection has brought about a nicety of adjustment between the seed output and mortality, and this presumption is implicit in most of the writings on this topic. If true, it involves as a necessary corollary that the potential of a species is a measure of its susceptibility to natural mortality."

"The pretty white , so called because of its flowering at that season, is also a , and its is a brilliant white. Its beauty and purity, as well as the season when it blooms, insure it being a favourite in every garden."

"We repaired to the . The powdery appearance was caused by glands scattered all over the ; this, and its general aspect, showed it to be the . No locality could be more favourable to its growth than these woods, where the immense boulders of greeting us at every step left no room to doubt the nature of the rock."

", in his work on the "Channel Islands," gives a most interesting picture of the harvest in . On the 10th of March and on the 20th of July, all the inhabitants repair to the shore, with such vehicles as they can press into their service, and they gather the weed in great quantities. Some they dry and use for fuel, and the remainder is laid upon the land as manure. It suits potatoe land remarkably well, and on this account is eagerly seized upon in Ireland, where it is carried at least fifteen miles inland."

"Mr. W. F. French, of , prepares very pretty fern-glasses, arranging within them Lilliputian rocks and ruins. They are to be had at the s in ; and, though they do not look by any means beautiful when unfurnished, they have an excellent effect with the full complement of mosses, s, and ferns. The best place for such cases is in a window to the north, and twice a week in the summer the glass should be removed and wiped dry, a little rain-water being administered occasionally to keep up the moisture. These fern-cases make very elegant drawing-room ornaments. All the small hardy and half-hardy ferns are well adapted for the s, as are also many of the 's and all the mosses."

"As an important member of the flora of Northern Europe, ' is commonly associated with s of a definite type, especially when it occurs as the dominant or sub-dominant species of moorland associations. As such, it is especially characterists of dry heath soils, deficient in and often ."

"It is not only that the bias of elementary es tends to give the whole subject an aloofness which helps to perpetuate the common attitude that Science is something essentially different and apart from the facts of every day life, it is that it makes it difficult for any but a most experienced and able lecturer to introduce the student to the study of plants in the light of the more recent as well as the older phases of botanical knowledge."

"In Trees and Toadstools, Rayner has given us an account, written in clear language understandable to the layman interested in science, of the symbiotic relationship which has been found to prevail between the of many of the higher fungi and forest trees. ... the story of 's epochal discoveries, originally initiated as a project to increase the supply of s but resulting in the real opening of research on the important field of forest tree root and fungus association, is well told in simple language."

"The (certainly one of the most exquisitely delicious of all our fungi) is generally neglected, or regarded with great suspicion. Under the name of 'champillion,' however, it is well known to the weavers and labouring men of the , who may be seen gathering it in considerable numbers any autumn day amongst the short grass of ."

"All the British s produce viable fruits without the necessity for fertilization () so that, although they have all the advantages of dispersal associated with normal seed production (in this instance of the parachute-bearing fruits), yet their reproduction is equivalent to vegetative propagation."

"Theophrastus, who wrote about 300 years before Christ, mentions the as the only tree in Greece that produced the blossoms before the leaves. ... The almond-tree was not cultivated in Italy in the time of Cato, who calls the fruit, nucces græcæ, or greek nuts."

"In science the credit goes to the man who convinces the world, not to the man to whom the idea first occurs. Not the man who finds a grain of new and precious quality but to him who sows it, reaps it, grinds it and feeds the world on it."

",who was in the in 1573, was the first European author who made any mention of coffee."