ON COLUMBINES 121 



I am that flower ; 



Dumaine. That Mint ! 



Longaville. That Columbine. 



And again in " Hamlet " : 



Ophelia. There's Fennel for you and Columbine ; there's 

 Rue for you ; and here's some for me ; we must call it herb 

 grace o' Sundays. 



The Columbine clearly had the interest for great 

 writers which all popular flowers must arouse ; and 

 the repeated references to it by Shakespeare may be 

 taken as a measure of its familiarity, for he was too 

 astute a writer to weaken his appeal by drawing illus- 

 trations from the garden that were likely to be strange 

 to his readers. His observing eye took in and measured 

 the influence of flowers as it did the power of human 

 emotions. 



It is not every botanist who will admit that, popular 

 as the Columbine has been from the earliest times of 

 which we have any floricultural records, it is a true 

 native plant ; but we need hardly labour the point, 

 for it would be impossible to give its original habitat. 

 The horticultural dictionaries state that the common 

 Columbine, Aquilegia vulgaris, is a native, while quoting 

 the exotic origin of several species which are them- 

 selves comparatively old plants. The Columbine was 

 specialised in the days of Parkinson (1567-1650), for 

 he wrote of it as being " carefully nursed up in our 

 gardens for the delight both of its form and colour." 

 Yet we might suppose that it had not been developed 

 very highly, since George Chapman, translator of Homer 

 and playwright, referred to it disparagingly in his bright 

 comedy, "All Fools," which was produced in or about 

 1599, as follows : 



" What's that a Columbine ? 

 No. That thankless flower grows not in my garden." 



