This book was the logical sequence of a talk I gave two years ago upon the "Gardens and Flowers of Shakespeare's Time" at the residence of Mrs. Charles H. Senff in New York, before the International Garden Club. This talk was very cordially received and was repeated by request at the home of Mrs. Ernest H. Fahnestock, also in New York. I wish to express my thanks to Mr. Norman Taylor of the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, for permission to reprint the first chapter, which appeared in the "Journal of the International Garden Club," of which he is the editor. I also wish to thank Mr. Taylor for his valued encouragement to me in the preparation of this book. I wish to direct attention to the remarkable portrait of Nicholas Leate, one of the greatest flower collectors of his day, photographed especially for this book from the original portrait in oils, painted by Daniel Mytens for the Worshipful Company of Ironmongers, of which Leate was master in 1616, 1626, and 1627. The portrait of this English worthy has never been photographed before; and it is a great pleasure for me to bring before the public the features and personality of a man who was such a deep lover of horticulture and who held such a large place in the London world in Shakespeare's time. The dignity, refinement, distinction, and general atmosphere of Nicholas Leate--and evidently Mytens painted a direct portrait without flattery--bespeak the type of gentleman who sought _re-creation_ in gardens and who could have held his own upon the subject with Sir Francis Bacon, Sir Thomas More, Sir Philip Sidney, Lord Burleigh, and Sir Henry Wotton--and, doubtless, he knew them all. It was not an easy matter to have this portrait photographed, because when the Hall of the Worshipful Company of Ironmongers was destroyed by a German bomb in 1917 the rescued portrait was stored in the National Gallery. Access to the portrait was very difficult, and it was only through the great kindness of officials and personal friends that a reproduction was made possible. I wish, therefore, to thank the Worshipful Company of Ironmongers for the gracious permission to have the portrait photographed and to express my gratitude to Mr. Collins Baker, keeper of the National Gallery, and to Mr. Ambrose, chief clerk and secretary of the National Gallery, for their kind co-operation; to Mr. C. W. Carey, curator of the Royal Holloway College Gallery, who spent two days in photographing the masterpiece; and also to Sir Evan Spicer of the Dulwich Gallery and to my sister, Mrs. Carrington, through whose joint efforts the arrangements were perfected. I also wish to thank the Trustees and Guardians of Shakespeare's Birthplace, who, through their Secretary, Mr. F. C. Wellstood, have supplied me with several photographs of the Shakespeare Garden at Stratford-upon-Avon, especially taken for this book, with permission for their reproduction. E. S.