Furthermore Parkinson writes that "the Pyracantha, or Prickly Coral
Tree, doth remain with green leaves all the year and may be plashed, or
laid down, or tyed to make up a fine hedge to border the whole knot"
and that "the Dwarf Bay, or Mezereon, is most commonly either placed
in the middle of a knot, or at the corners thereof, and sometimes all
along a walk for the more grace."
So much for the "outlandish" flowers!
Turning now to the "English flowers," we find that Parkinson includes
primroses and cowslips, single rose campions, white, red, and blush
and the double red campion and the Flower of Bristow, or Nonesuch, "a
kind of Campion, white and blush as well as orange-color." And here
Parkinson stops a moment to talk about this Nonesuch, for he was so
fond of it that he holds it in his hand in the portrait that appears as
a frontispiece to his "Paradisus" and from which our reproduction is
made. Of it he writes: "The orange color Nonesuch with double flowers
as is rare and not common so for his bravery doth well deserve a Master
of account that will take care to keep and preserve it."
Then he continues: Bachelors'-buttons, both white and red;
wall-flowers, double and single; stock-gilliflowers, queen's
gilliflowers (which some call dame's violets and some winter
gilliflowers, a kind of stock-gilliflower); violets, "the spring's
chief flowers for beauty, smell and use," both single and double;
snap-dragons, "flowers of much more delight"; columbines, "single
and double, of many sorts, fashions and colors, very variable, both
speckled and parti-colored--no garden would willingly be without them."
Next "Larks' heels, or spurs, or toes, as they are called, single and
double"; pansies, or heartsease, of divers colors, "although without
scent yet not without some respect and delight"; double poppies
"adorning a garden with their variable colors to the delight of the
beholders"; double daisies, "white and red, blush and speckled and
parti-colored, besides that which is called Jack-an-Apes-on-Horseback,"
double marigolds; French marigolds "that have a strong, heady scent,
both single and double, whose glorious show for color would cause
any to believe there were some rare goodness or virtue in them; and
carnations and gilliflowers."
Here again Parkinson's enthusiasm causes him to pause, for he exclaims:
"But what shall I say to the Queen of Delight and of Flowers,
Carnations and Gilliflowers, whose bravery, variety and sweet smell
joined together tieth every one's affection with great earnestness
both to like and to have them?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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