My Garden in Spring 



rise up many small stalks like the other plaintaines, having 

 at the top of every one a fine double Rose altogether unlike 

 the former, of an hoary or rusty greene colour." 



Johnson in editing the second edition has given the 

 plate from Clusius' Rariorunt Plantarum Historia, and inter- 

 polates this remark : " I take this set forth by our Auther 

 to be the same with that which Clusius received from 

 James Garret the yonger, from London, and therefore I 

 give you the figure thereof in this place, together with this 

 addition to the history out of Clusius : That some of the 

 heads are like those of the former Rose Plantaine : other 

 some are spike fashion, and some have a spike growing as 

 it were out of the midst of the Rose, and some heads are 

 otherwise shaped, also the whole plant is more hoary than 

 the common Rose Plantaine," which contradicts Gerard's 

 statement that his plant has at the top of every stalk a fine 

 double Rose. The heads that are "otherwise shaped" 

 are in Clusius' figure either spiked or branching, and my 

 plant never produces any but the fine double Roses, so I 

 feel sure it is the plant Gerard praised so highly. It came 

 to me from Glasnevin, and is a much rarer plant than the 

 other Rose Plantain, which is a form of P. major and the 

 same thing as that figured in Gerard and Parkinson. This 

 last produces both spiked and rose-shaped flower heads, 

 some of them attractive but others very untidy, shapeless 

 masses of small leaves, in the axils of which a good number 

 of flowers appear and bear seed freely, so that young 

 seedlings are plentiful round the old plants, quite unlike 

 the other, the P. media form, which is quite barren, at least 

 here, and must be increased by division. The green and 

 yellow Snowdrops, both double and single, which I have 

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