BY BANK AND COPSE. 15 



cowslip ; and, if transplanted in November, will originate 

 fresh stocks of polyanthuses in our gardens, as no doubt 

 the first of their varied kind originated. These quaintly 

 stiff little plants, with numerous little globular blue flowers 

 clustered together at the upper end of a glossy green stalk, 

 are the starch- or cluster- and grape-hyacinths, and, though 

 often not in flower till May, and not truly wild, may 

 sometimes be met with in situations where they have 

 probably escaped from cultivation. 



The fragrant charms of the mezereon, and the gold and 

 purple glories of the crocuses, are, after all, but very 

 transient, whilst the crown imperial has in the March 

 flower-bed a dignity all its own. Its stout stems, with their 

 bright, luxuriant leaves, rise two feet or more from the bulb; 

 and, though its tulip-like blossoms of pale lemon-yellow or 

 deep brownish-red do hang downwards, their number and 

 size seem fully to justify its name. A native of Persia, 

 Afghanistan, and Cashmere, we shall find its more lowly 

 congener the fritillary, as a wilding in our meadows a little 

 later in the year. Chapman, a contemporary of Shakespere, 



calls it 



" Fair crown imperial, emperor of flowers ; " 



and John Parkinson, but a few years later, in his Paradisus 

 Terrestris, says that it "for its stately beautifulnesse de- 

 serveth the first place in this our garden of delight, to be 

 entreated of before all other Lillies." Most of the varieties 

 we have now, some of which have leaves striped with white 

 or yellow, existed in his time. But let us look a little more 

 closely at the flower itself, and if we lift one of the blossoms 

 what we see within cannot be better described than it was 

 by Gerard in 1597. " In the bottome of each of the bells," 

 he says, "there is placed six drops of most cleere shining 



