II 



ABBOTSBURY, DORSETSHIRE 



A X TITH what amazement and wonder would 

 V V Parkinson who travelled for forty years 

 collecting rare treasures for his Garden have 

 gazed on Abbotsbury with its beautiful mass of 

 flowers and trees, a perfect treasure-house of rare 

 plants ! 



It was this same John Parkinson, author of 

 " Paradisi-in-Sole, Paradisus Terrestris" one of the 

 most fascinating of the Elizabethan Garden books 

 who roughly divides flowers into two sections 

 " English Flowers " and " Outlandish Flowers." 

 Of the latter he says : " Flowers that being strangers 

 unto us, and giving the beauty and bravery of their 

 colours so early, before many of our owne-bred 

 flowers, the more to entice us to their delight." 

 Abbotsbury is indeed a Garden of " Outlandish 

 Flowers " ; in fact, a sub-tropical Garden by reason 

 of the rareness of "the strangers " within its beds. 

 Just beyond the little old-world village of 



