SEPTEMBER. 283 



marriage of Margaret of Anjou with Henry the Sixth may be regarded 

 also as an event hkely to have brought the ; Provence Rose to our 

 northern cUmate. Of all the flowers, however, known to our ancestors, 

 the Gillyflower or Clove Pink (clou-de-girojlee) , was the commonest, 

 and to a certain degree the most esteemed. Mr. Loudon has stated, 

 erroneously, that the cruelties of the Duke of Alva in 1567, were the 

 occasion of our receiving through the Flemish weavers, Gillyflowers, 

 Carnations, and Provence Roses. The Gillyflower had been known and 

 prized in England centuries before : at the end of the sixteenth century, 

 Lawson, who terms it the king of flowers, except the Rose, boasted that 

 he had Gillyflowers " of nine or ten severall colours, and divers of them 

 as bigge as Roses. Of all flowers (save the Damaske Rose) they are 

 the most pleasant to sight and smell. Their use is much in ornament, 

 and comforting the spirites, by the sence of smelling." There was a 

 variety of this flower well known in early times as the wall Gillyflower 

 or bee flower, " because growing on w^alles, even in winter, and good for 

 bees." The reserved rent " unius clavi gariojili" which is of such 

 frequent occurrence in mediaval deeds relating to land, meant simply 

 the render of a Gillyflower, although it has been usually understood to 

 signify the payment of a clove of commerce ; the incorrectness of this 

 reading must be apparent if it is recollected that the Clove was scarcely 

 known in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, when this kind of reserved 

 rent was most common. 



Another flower of common growth in medieval orchards, or gardens, 

 was the Pervinke, or Periwinkle : — 



" There sprang the violet all ne\re, 



And fresh pervinke, rich of hewe, 



And tiowris yellow, white, and rede, 



Such plente grew there nor in the mead." — Chaucer. 



As this plant will flower under the shade of trees or lofty walls, it was 

 well adapted to ornament the securely enclosed, and possibly sombre, 

 gardens of early times. 



Antiquarian. 



THE NUMBERING OF PLANTS. 



Participating, with your correspondent who signs himself "A Country 

 Rector," in the taste for cultivating herbaceous plants, and the love of 

 a gay flower-garden, I have often been at a loss to contrive some simple 

 and permanent tally to place near the roots of the plants, which should 

 enable any one, by referring to a small memorandum-book, to learn 

 the botanical and popular names, and all other desirable particulars in 

 regard to each specimen. I was very much pleased, therefore, with 

 the simple and ingenious manner of marking described in the number 

 of the Flurist for January, 1854, by " Indicator." It seems to me, 

 however, better adapted for a bed containing a few plants than for the 

 numbering of an extensive collection, on account of the space taken up 

 by the amount of notches required for showing the tens in any number 

 above a hundred ; bits of deal or any other wood also very soon decay. 



