5j^ Violets, Primroses and Wallflowers ($£ 



* See how the Bears' Ears in their several dresses, 

 That yet no Poet's pen so high expresses, 

 Each head adorned with such rich attire, 

 Which Fools and Clowns may slight, whilst skill'd admire, 

 Their gold, their purples, scarlets, crimson dies, 

 Their dark and lighter hair'd diversities, 

 With all their pretty shades and Ornaments, 

 Their parti-coloured coats and pleasing scents, 

 Gold laid on scarlet, silver on the blue, 

 With sparkling eyes to take the eyes of you, 

 Mixt colours, many more to please that sense, 

 Others with rich and great magnificence ; 

 In double Ruffs, with gold and silver laced, 

 On purple crimson, and so neatly placed. 

 Ransack Flora's Wardrobes, none sure can bring 

 More taking Ornaments t'adorn the spring.' 



In later years auriculas became especially popular with 

 the Lancashire weavers, who called the flowers ' Baziers.' 

 There is an old Lancashire song : 



1 Come listen awhile to what we shall say 



Concerning the season, the month we call May, 



For the flowers they are springing, the little birds they are singing, 



And the Baziers are sweet in the mornings of May.' 



Another pleasant old name for the auricula was Dusty 

 Miller, and it is fortunately still possible to get the old 

 red Dusty Miller and the old yellow Dusty Miller. 



Altogether there must be quite a hundred members 

 of the primula family in cultivation in Great Britain, and 

 one can only envy those with sufficient space to make a 

 primrose garden and able to give the Asiatic varieties the 

 moist situations so many of them require. A primrose 

 garden is full of beauty for quite six months in the year, 

 for the early primroses, both the single and double 



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