NEW PLANTS.

Borbonia with oblong, black fruit and a scarlet calyx the outer, usually green or colorful part of a flower that supports the petals.
Borbonia with spherical black fruit and a reddish-green calyx.

The most Serene Prince Gaston of Bourbon Gaston, Duke of Orléans (1608–1660), a major patron of botany, of Royal blood and descendant of Great Kings—son of Henry the Great and uncle of Louis the Great—was, among his other Royal virtues, delighted by such a great love of botany that he brought together at Blois and Paris (his own Hesperidean gardens referring to the mythical gardens of the Hesperides which grew golden apples) the rarest plants from the entire world at immense expense. So that they would not be missing even during the winter, he saw to it that they were captured on vellum fine parchment made from animal skin by the hand of the most skilled painter, Nicolas Robert of Blois a famous French botanical illustrator, and depicted from life in their natural colors, also at great cost. Do you wonder at such a great love for botany in such a Prince? Rather, wonder that so few of our many Princes and Nobles are found swimming in this vast whirlpool of innocent delights—a pursuit that does not overwhelm the soul, but charms it. For what is more delightful and innocent than looking upon plants? What, finally, is more useful? Plants nourish us, plants heal us, plants protect us; they are more brilliant than Achemenian perfumes costus, an ancient aromatic root, Mygdonian wealth, or Phrygian marble, and more radiant than the purple of the stars. Their use soothes us when we are in pain.

G U I D O N I A.

Plate 24.

Guidonia original: "Guidonia"; named after Guy-Crescent Fagon is a genus of plant with a flower consisting of a single petal shaped like a truncated cone (C), sitting in a multi-cleft calyx (B). From the center umbilicus of the calyx rises a pistil (B) which later turns into an egg-shaped, fleshy fruit (E), which opens from the tip to the base in four parts (F), and is filled with seeds that are mostly oblong (H), adhering to a placenta (G) the part of the fruit where the seeds are attached.

There are several species of Guidonia.

Guidonia with elm-like leaves and a rose-colored flower.
Guidonia with elm-like leaves and a snow-white flower.
Guidonia with prickly leaves like those of an orange tree.
Guidonia with larger leaves like those of a walnut tree.
Guidonia with smaller leaves like those of a walnut tree.

The most illustrious Master Guy-Crescent Fagon 1638–1718, chief physician to Louis XIV and a dedicated botanist, Counselor to the King, Head of the Royal Physicians, and grandson of Guy de La Brosse founder of the Jardin des Plantes in Paris—who was himself a great Physician, Royal Botanist, and the first Prefect and expander of the Royal Garden in Paris. Having been born, as it were, in the Royal Garden like a student of Chiron on Mount Parnassus Chiron was the wise centaur who taught medicine and botany to heroes like Achilles, Fagon gave certain omens of his future excellence. For his mastery of poetry...