The garden in which these fine groups were painted has a good loamy
soil, such as, with good gardening, grows most hardy flowers well, and
therefore the grand White Lily also thrives. A few of the Lilies like
peat, such as the great Auratum, and the two lovely pink ones, Krameri
and Rubellum. But the garden of strong loam should never be without the
White Lily, the Orange Lily, and the Tiger Lily, an autumn flower that
seems to accommodate itself to any soil. The Orange Lilies are grandly
grown by the Dutch nurserymen in many varieties, under the names
_bulbiferum_, _croceum_, and _davuricum_, and their price is so moderate
that it is no extravagance to buy them in fair quantity.
Flowers of pure scarlet colour are so little common among hardy
perennials that it seems a pity that the brilliant _Lilium
chalcedonicum_ of Greece, Palestine, and Asia Minor, and its ally _L.
pomponium_, the Scarlet Martagon of Northern Italy, should be so seldom
seen in gardens. They are some of the most easily grown, and are not
dear to buy. Another Lily that should not be forgotten and is easy to
grow in strong soils is the old Purple Martagon; not a bright-coloured
flower, but so old a plant of English gardens that in some places it has
escaped into the woods. The white variety is very beautiful, the colour
an ivory white, and the flower of a waxy texture. They are the Imperial
Martagon, or Great Mountain Lily of the old writers; the scarlet
_pomponium_, of the same shaped flower, was their Martagon Pompony. The
name “pompony,” no doubt, came from the tightly rolled-back petals
giving the flower something of the look of the flattened melons of the
Cantaloupe kind, with their deep longitudinal furrows; the old name of
these being “Pompion.” Another name for this Lily was the Red Martagon
of Constantinople. It is so named by that charming old writer Parkinson,
who gives evidence of its
[Illustration: WHITE LILIES AND YELLOW MONKSHOOD
FROM THE PICTURE IN THE POSSESSION OF
MR. HERBERT D. TURNER]
popularity and former frequency in gardens in these words: “The Red
Martagon of Constantinople is become so common everywhere, and so well
known to all lovers of these delights, that I shal seem unto them to
lose time, to bestow many lines upon it; yet because it is so fair a
flower, and was at the first so highly esteemed, it deserveth his place
and commendations, howsoever increasing the plenty hath not made it
dainty.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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