I often visited a particular plant four or five miles distant, half a dozen times within a fortnight, that I might know exactly when it opened.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
I know my corn plants intimately, and I find it a great pleasure to know them.
Nearly every season, I make the acquaintance of one or more new flowers. It takes years to exhaust the botanical treasures of any one considerable neighborhood, unless one makes a dead set at it, like an herbalist.
Gardeners instinctively know that flowers and plants are a continuum and that the wheel of garden history will always be coming full circle.
A beautiful plant is like having a friend around the house.
If every plant and flower were found in all places, the charm of locality would not exist. Everything varies, and that gives the interest.
For my part, I would say that the male sperm and seeds of plants have been penetrated so far that there is nothing further to discover in this great secret, but I could err in my opinion.
I have lived in this world just long enough to look carefully the second time into things that I am most certain of the first time.
I learnt about plants from my father, who was a herbalist and an amateur microscopist.
Change is a continuous process. You cannot assess it with the static yardstick of a limited time frame. When a seed is sown into the ground, you cannot immediately see the plant. You have to be patient. With time, it grows into a large tree. And then the flowers bloom, and only then can the fruits be plucked.
A practical botanist will distinguish at the first glance the plant of the different quarters of the globe and yet will be at a loss to tell by what marks he detects them.