STOCK OR OTLLYFLOWRR. 26 



agreeable perfume. The name of Gillyflower 

 was also common to several plants, as the Wall 

 Gillyflower and the Clove Gillyflower, ^c. Our 

 great lexicographer concludes, that the word is 

 corrupted from Mj Floiver, because Lord Bacon 

 says, *' in July come Gillyflowers of all varieties ;'* 

 and Mortimer is also quoted, who writes " Gil- 

 lyflowers, or rather July Flowers, is called from 

 the month they blow^ in," or, says Johnson, *' from 

 Girqflte, of the French." It is evidently not de- 

 rived from /zz/y, since Chaucer, who frequently 

 uses French words, spells it Gilofre. The learned 

 Dr. Turner, in his History of Plants of 1568, 

 calls it Gelouer, and to which he adds the word 

 Stock, as we would say, Gelouers that grow on a 

 stem or stock to distinguish them from the Clove 

 Gelouers and the Wall Gelouers. Gerard, who 

 succeeded Turner, and after him, Parkinson, call 

 it Gilloflower, and thus it travelled from its ori- 

 ginal orthography until it was called July Flower 

 by those who knew not whence it was derived. 

 The name of Gillyflower is now but Httle used, 

 and the appellation of these pretty flowers at 

 present rests upon the Stock. 



Few flowering plants have been so much im- 

 proved by cultivation and so rapidly as the Stock, 

 that has within these last two centuries had its 

 nature so completely changed by the art of the 



