SOUTH LONDON PARKS 171 



plants mentioned in Shakespeare's works. A little know- 

 ledge is a dangerous thing, and the unwary might not 

 realise that the flowers of Shakespeare's time, although 

 undoubtedly there, only form a small portion of the 

 whole display. The board is literally true, but visitors 

 are apt to go away with the idea that brilliant dahlias, 

 and gaudy calceolarias, or even the most modern intro- 

 duction, Kochia tricophila^ were friends of Shakespeare's ! 

 A large number of the plants, however, are truly of the 

 Elizabethan age, that golden time of progress in garden- 

 ing as well as of other arts, when spirited courtiers and 

 hardened old sailors alike scoured the seas and brought 

 strange plants from new lands. Many of these now 

 familiar treasures from east and west flourish in this little 

 enclosure, and recall the romantic days of the sixteenth 

 century : the Marvel of Peru — the very name tells the 

 delight that heralded its arrival from the West — the 

 quaint Egg-plant {Solanum ovigerum) brought from 

 Africa, and the bright-seeded Capsicums from India. 

 Even the bush, with its wealth of white or purple flowers, 

 the Hibiscus Syriacus, was known in those days, though 

 not by that name. Gerard, in describing it, says it was 

 a stranger to England ; " notwithstanding, I have sowen 

 some seedes of them in my garden, expecting successe." 

 That delightful confidence, which is the great charac- 

 teristic of all these old gardeners, was not abused, appa- 

 rently, in this case, for two years later, in the catalogue 

 of plants in his garden, 1599, this great tree mallow was 

 flourishing. Many of the gourds, which are grown to 

 great advantage in this little garden, were also known at 

 an early date. Gerard says of them, *' they joy in a 

 fruitful soil, and are common in England." Were it not 

 for the conspicuous little notice-board, no fault could be 



