All the tribe of Cucumbers are handsome foliaged plants, but they require room. On the Continent they are much more frequently grown in gardens than in England, but the hardy perennial Cucumber (_Cucumis perennis_) makes a very handsome carpet where the space can be spared, and the Squirting Cucumber (also hardy and perennial) is worth growing for its curious fruit. (_See also_ PUMPION.) FOOTNOTES: [59:1] 2 Kings iv. 39. [59:2] "Invenitque quasi vitem sylvestrem, et collegit ex ea Colocynthidas agri."--_Vulgate._ COLUMBINE. (1) _Armado._ I am that flower, _Dumain._ That Mint. _Longaville._ That Columbine. _Love's Labour's Lost_, act v, sc. 2 (661). (2) _Ophelia._ There's Fennel for you and Columbines. _Hamlet_, act iv, sc. 5 (189). This brings us to one of the most favourite of our old-fashioned English flowers. It is very doubtful whether it is a true native, but from early times it has been "carefully nursed up in our gardens for the delight both of its forme and colours" (Parkinson); yet it had a bad character, as we see from two passages quoted by Steevens-- "What's that--a Columbine? No! that thankless flower grows not in my garden." _All Fools_, by CHAPMAN, 1605. and again in the 15th Song of Drayton's "Polyolbion"-- "The Columbine amongst they sparingly do set." Spenser gave it a better character. Among his "gardyn of sweet floures, that dainty odours from them threw around," he places-- "Her neck lyke to a bounch of Cullambynes." And, still earlier, Skelton (1463-1529) spoke of it with high praise-- "She is the Vyolet, The Daysy delectable, The Columbine commendable, The Ielofer amyable."--_Phyllip Sparrow._ Both the English and the Latin names are descriptive of the plant. Columbine, or the Dove-plant, calls our attention to the "resemblance of its nectaries to the heads of pigeons in a ring round a dish, a favourite device of ancient artists" (Dr. Prior); or to "the figure of a hovering dove with expanded wings, which we obtain by pulling off a single petal with its attached sepals" (Lady Wilkinson); though it may also have had some reference to the colour, as the word is used by Chaucer-- "Come forth now with thin eyghen Columbine." _The Marchaundes Tale_ (190). The Latin name, _Aquilegia_, is generally supposed to come from _aquilegus_, a water-collector, alluding to the water-holding powers of the flower; it may, however, be derived from _aquila_, an eagle, but this seems more doubtful.