The glimpses he gives us of London gardens are few and one longs for more. It is remarkable how few vegetables, or "pot-herbs" as they called them, were grown in Elizabethan times. Vegetables which figured in the old Roman menus were considered luxuries in this country even in the days of the later Stuarts. The wild carrot is an indigenous plant in our islands, but of the cultivated carrot we were ignorant till the Flemish immigrants introduced it in the early seventeenth century. Parsnips, turnips and spinach were also rarities. With the exception of the wild cabbage, the whole brassica tribe were unknown to us till the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Potatoes and Jerusalem artichokes were both introduced into this country in Tudor days. Gerard was one of the first to grow potatoes, and he proudly tells us, "I have received hereof from Virginia roots which grow and prosper in my garden as in their own native countrie." He was, in fact, the originator of the popular but incorrect epithet "Virginia potato." The potato was not a native of Virginia, nor was it cultivated there in Tudor times. The Spaniards brought it from Quito in 1580, and Gerard had it in his garden as early as 1596. The potato to which Shakespeare refers (_Troilus and Cressida_, V. ii. 534; _Merry Wives of Windsor_, V. v. 20, 21) is, of course, the sweet potato, which had been introduced into Europe nearly eighty years earlier. Gerard speaks of this sweet potato as "the common potato," which is somewhat confusing to the modern reader. There is a delightful glimpse of a well-known London garden, that of "Master Tuggie," who lived in Westminster and whose hobby was gilliflowers. It is the more interesting to find this passage in Gerard, for, as all lovers of Parkinson's _Paradisus_ will remember, some of the varieties of gilliflower were called after their enthusiastic grower. Indeed, who can forget their enchanting names--"Master Tuggie's Princesse" and "Master Tuggie his Rose gillowflower"? Of gilliflowers, which vied with roses in pride of place in Elizabethan gardens, Gerard writes thus:-- "Now I (holding it a thing not so fit for me to insist upon these accidental differences of plants having specifique differences enough to treat of) refer such as are addicted to these commendable and harmless delights to survey the late and oft-mentioned Worke of my friend, Mr. John Parkinson, who hath accurately and plentifully treated of these varieties. If they require further satisfaction, let them at the time of the yeare repaire to the garden of Mistress Tuggie (the wife of my late deceased friend, Mr. Ralph Tuggie) in Westminster, which in the excellencie and varietie of these delights exceedeth all that I have seene, as also, he himself, whilst he lived exceeded most, if not all, of his time, in his care, industry and skill, in raising, increasing and preserving of these plants."