Part 8 (1/2)

I am arranging the caryophylls, which I ma.s.s broadly into ”Clarissa,”

the true jagged-leaved and clove-scented ones; ”Lychnis,” those whose leaves are essentially in two lobes; ”Arenaria,” which I leave untouched; and ”Mica,” a new name of my own for the pearlworts of which the French name is to be Miette, and the representative type (now Sagina proc.u.mbens) is to be in--

_Latin_--Mica amica.

_French_--Miette l'amie.

_English_--Pet pearlwort.

Then the next to this is to be--

_Latin_--Mica millegrana.

_French_--Miette aux mille perles.

_English_--Thousand pearls.

Now this on the whole I consider the prettiest of the group, and so look for a plate of it which I can copy. Hunting all through my botanical books, I find the best of all is Baxter's Oxford one, and determine at once to engrave that. When turning the page of his text I find: ”The specimen of this curious and interesting little plant from which the accompanying drawing was made was communicated to me by Miss Susan Beever. To the kindness of this young lady, and that of her sister, Miss Mary Beever, I am indebted for the four plants figured in this number.”

I have copied lest you should have trouble in looking for the book, but now, you darling Susie, please tell me whether I may not separate these lovely pearlworts wholly from the spergulas,--by the pearlworts having only two leaves like real pinks at the joints, and the spergulas, a _cl.u.s.ter_; and tell me how the spergulas scatter their seeds, I can't find any account of it.

I would fain have come to see that St. Bruno lily; but if I don't come to see Susie and you, be sure I am able to come to see nothing. At present I am very deeply involved in the cla.s.sification of the minerals in the Sheffield Museum, important as the first practical arrangement ever yet attempted for popular teaching, and this with my other work makes me fit for nothing in the afternoon but wood-chopping. But I will call to-day on Dr. Brown's friends.

I hope you will not be too much shocked with the audacities of the new number[26] of ”Proserpina,” or with its ignorances. I am going during my wood-chopping really to ascertain in my own way what simple persons ought to know about tree growth, and give it clearly in the next number. I meant to do the whole book very differently, but can only now give the fragmentary pieces as they chance to come, or it would never be done at all.

You must know before anybody else how the exogens are to be completely divided. I keep the four great useful groups, mallow, geranium, mint, and wallflower, under the head of domestic orders, that their sweet service and companions.h.i.+p with us may be understood; then the water-lily and the heath, both four foils, are to be studied in their solitudes (I shall throw all that are not four foils out of the Ericaceae); then finally there are to be seven orders of the dark proserpine, headed by the draconids (snapdragons), and including the anemones, h.e.l.lebores, ivies, and forget-me-nots.

What plants I cannot get ranged under these 12+4+2+7==25 in all, orders, I shall give broken notices of, as I have time, leaving my pupils to arrange them as they like. I can't do it all.

The whole household was out after breakfast to-day to the top of the moor to plant cranberries; and we squeezed and splashed and spluttered in the boggiest places the lovely suns.h.i.+ne had left, till we found places squashy and squeezy enough to please the most particular and coolest of cranberry minds; and then each of us choosing a little special bed of bog, the tufts were deeply put in with every manner of tacit benediction, such as might befit a bog and a berry, and many an expressed thanksgiving to Susie and to the kind sender of the luxuriant plants. I have never had gift from you, dear Susie, more truly interesting and gladdening to me, and many a day I shall climb the moor to see the fate of the plants and look across to the Thwaite.

I've been out most of the forenoon and am too sleepy to shape letters, but will try and get a word of thanks to the far finder of the dainty things to-morrow.

What loveliness everywhere in a duckling sort of state just now.

[Footnote 26: Part 5.]

BRANTWOOD.

I hope you did not get a chill in the garden. The weather is a little wrong again, but I am thankful for last night's sunset.

You know our English Bible is only of James 1st time--Stalk is a Saxon word, and gets into English I fancy as early as the Plantagenets--but I have not hunted it down.--I'm just in the same mess with ”pith,” but I'm finding out a great deal about the thing though not the word, for next ”Deucalion,” in chopping my wood.

You know, ”Funckia” won't last long. I am certain I shall have strength enough to carry my system of nomenclature at least as far, as to exclude people's individual names.