142 FLORA. HISTORICA. 



James Garret, apothecarie, also for their gardens, 

 where they flourish and increase, as in their own 

 natiue countrey." Amongst the varieties which 

 Gerard particularizes are some that continue to be 

 very rare even to this day. " We have," says this 

 writer, " one of great beautie, and verie much de- 

 sired of all, with white flowers dasht on the back 

 side, with a light wash of watchet colour. There is 

 another also in our London gardens, of a snow- 

 white colour : the edges slightly washt ouer with a 

 little of what we call blush colour. We have 

 another like the former, saving that his flower is of 

 a straw colour. 1 ' 



It was towards the middle of the seventeenth 

 century that the rage for flowers, and particularly 

 for Tulips, was carried to such an excess, both in 

 Holland and in France, as to produce bankruptcy 

 and ruin to many families ; and we are told that 

 the Tulipomania, for so it was justly termed, was 

 entered into with as much avidity for a time as the 

 Mississippi and South-Sea schemes, which were 

 attended with such ruinous consequences. It would 

 be almost impossible for us to credit the extraordi- 

 nary accounts handed down respecting the high 

 prices given for Tulips by the Dutch florists of that 

 age, were we not acquainted with their gambling 

 speculations in this bulb, which carried them to 

 much greater excess than their real fondness for 



