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The Browallia: Linnaeus
These flowers belong to the important order Scrophularinoe, in which we find not only the Browallia and schizanthus, but the calceolaria, verbascum, antirrhinum, the pentstemon, and the mimulus, with many more garden favourites that to the casual eye have but few traces of a family likeness. The Browallia was so named by Linnaeus in remembrance of J. Browallius, Bishop of Abo, which was formerly the seat of government in Swedish Finland, and still is the seat of a Lutheran archbishopric, although now it is a Russian and not a Swedish city, having passed over with the whole of Finland at the peace of Frederickshamm in 1809. Finland was a botanical playground to Linnaeus, and its capital Abo was to him the most important, because it was the nearest centre of learning and liberal thought. Commemorative names of plants are in many respects objectionable, but there is something to be said in their favour, and in any case the names that Linnaeus bestowed on plants "the world will not willingly let die." Of one flower in particular may this be said, for the delicate two-flowered Linnaea, the Linnoea borealis of the botanist, he named after himself. It is a humble creeping shrub of the cold morasses of the north, producing exquisitely beautiful though unattractive miniature bell-flowers in pairs. The great botanist, remembering his own humble origin, and conscious of a merit that then had not been generally recognised, chose this flower for the emblem of his own career, and described it as "a little northern plant, flowering early, depressed, abject, and long over-looked." It may not be too wide a departure from the course set before us to remark that in those few words we have a great poem, wanting neither verse, nor rhyme, nor music to indicate the pathos that cannot be concealed. Linnaeus was indeed a poet, though he was and is properly ranked among the soldiers of science.
The Browallias may be advantageously employed to embellish the greenhouse and conservatory during the summer. For this purpose we have not so great a variety of flowers as may appear from a casual consideration of the subject, because a large proportion of decorative plants thrive so much better when planted out than when kept in pots and flowered under glass. These little tropical forget-me-nots enjoy the shelter and comparatively uniform temperature of the greenhouse during the summer, and in places where the climate is usually unfavourable to tender plants in the open ground it is advisable not to plant them out, but to grow fine pot specimens for flowering in-doors. Then it will be found that the two varieties of B.elata, giving flowers white and blue; with B. pulchella, with flowers rosy purple; B. grandiflora, with flowers yellow; and B. Jamesoni, with flowers orange-will make an interesting collection. Associate with them a few fine pot specimens of the delicate schizanthus, and the conservatory will not lack interest and beauty.
