^ FLORA HISTORIC A. 



attention of the ancients, since we do not find it 

 described by any of their writers. D. Rembertus 

 Dodoneus, who was physician to the emperor 

 Charles the Fifth, is the first author who seems to 

 have noticed this plant ; he tells us, in the second 

 part of his History of Plants, chap. 7, that it grows 

 in sunny situations on rough hilly places in Ger- 

 many. This author calls it Amerius flos and Colme- 

 nier; he tells us also that this plant had been found 

 growing wild, but with very small flowers, in some 

 parts of Flanders. We met with it also in the 

 wild state on the hills in Normandy, some distance 

 west of Dieppe, but the flowers were scarce larger 

 than those of the London Pride, Saxifraga urn- 

 brosa, but possessing all the true chai'acter and 

 fine pencilling of colour of the Sweet- WilUam. 

 The plants were about three inches in height, 

 and growing in an uncultivated spot, at such a 

 distance from any dweUing or garden, as to justify 

 the opinion of its being a native of that part of 

 France, rather than a degenerated plant escaped 

 from the garden. 



Dr. Turner has not noticed the Sweet-William 

 in his work of 1568 ; but in twenty-nine years 

 after, it is mentioned by Gerard, as a common 

 flower in the gardens of that age, and where we 

 may presume it had long held a situation, since, 

 amongst other names, it was called " London 



