170 Old Time Gardens 



eral universal winter posies. On the narrow mantel 

 shelves of farm and village parlors, both in England 

 and America, still is seen a winter posy made of dried 

 stalks of the seed valves of a certain flower; they 

 are shown on the opposite page. Let us see how 

 our old friend, Gerarde, describes this plant: — 



" The stalkes are loden with many flowers like the 

 stocke-gilliflower, of a purple colour, which, being fallen, 

 the seede cometh foorthe conteined in a flat thinne cod, 

 with a sharp point or pricke at one end, in fashion of the 

 moone, and somewhat blackish. This cod is composed of 

 three filmes or skins whereof the two outermost are of an 

 overworne ashe colour, and the innermost, or that in the 

 middle whereon the seed doth hang or cleave, is thin and 

 cleere shining, like a piece of white satten newly cut from 

 the peece." 



In the latter clause of this striking description is 

 given the reason for the popular name of the flower, 

 Satin-flower or White Satin, for the inner septum is a 

 shining membrane resembling white satin. Another 

 interesting name is Pricksong-flower. All who have 

 seen sheets of music of Elizabethan days, when the 

 notes of music were called pricks, and the whole 

 sheet a pricksong, will readily trace the resemblance 

 to the seeds of this plant. 



Gerarde says it was named " Penny-floure, Money- 

 floure, Silver-plate, Sattin, and among our women 

 called Honestie." The last name was commonly 

 applied at the close of the eighteenth century. It is 

 thus named in writings of Rev. William Hanbury, 

 1 77 1, and a Boston seedsman then advertised seeds 



