34
This conversation suggested to me at once the means of dispensing with my old anarchical catalogue when in the garden, and in fact the whole plan of proceeding in the study of botany stood before my view; I felt confident I should soon leave all the young jealous, triumphant, and sneering botanic geniuses at a respectable distance behind. It happening to be the time of admission, I proceeded immediately to that corner of the garden where the medical plants were, leaving the catalogue at home. I began christening these plants just in the same manner as my landlady and her ingenious daughters christened the students of the university,—viz. I gave them those names which spontaneously were suggested to me by the sight, touch, &c. of them. The first plant suggested imperatively the name of Roof covered with snow, from the smallness, whiteness, and peculiar disposition of its flowers, and so I wrote down in my copy-book No. 978, Roof covered with snow. Next I found No. 735, Red, big-headed, cocknosed plant; and so on to about twenty plants in a few minutes; then I tried whether I had committed to memory these plants—Yes. In looking to the plants, their nicknames immediately jumped up before my imagination; in looking to these nick-names in my copy-book, the plants themselves jumped up. My joy was extreme: in a quarter of an hour I left the garden, convinced that I had
