SOME OLD FAVOURITES AND NEW 71 



Clusius first brought there the yellow anemone 

 he found at the "foot of St. Bernard's Hill near 

 unto the Canton of the Switzers." Since the days, 

 too, when the old herbalists used the leaves of some 

 sorts in " the ointment called Marciatum, which is 

 composed of many other hot herbes, and is used in 

 cold griefs, to warme and comfort the parts." And 

 even if they and the Anemone coronaria do not 

 now fetch the high prices they did when they were 

 among the collector's fancies, they are still a good 

 deal in demand. 



Among the flowers grown in the bulb gardens 

 of to-day which favour has treated somewhat 

 strangely the Fritillaria family should certainly 

 be mentioned. The Crown Imperial, king and 

 chief of the Fritillarias, is grown now as it was 

 in the early days of the bulb industry ; the big 

 lily-like bulbs are treated in much the same way, 

 and the old varieties are there with comparatively 

 few new ones added to them. In the sixteenth 

 and seventeenth centuries Crown Imperials ranked 

 high among flowers. Parkinson gives them the 

 place of honour in his Garden of Pleasant 

 Flowers, and, in the pretty way of the old writers 

 speaking of a loved or admired object, lifts them 

 from the neuter to the gendered class : " The 



