^ The Scented Qarden ^ 



call it by his owne name Wilmer's double Daffodill, 

 which since hath so continued.' 



The richly-scented poet's narcissus is still known in 

 some parts of the country by its pretty old names of 

 Sweet Nancies and None-so-pretty, but one never hears 

 the old name, ' primrose peerless,' recorded by Lyte. 

 * These pleasant flowers are called in Englishe Narcissus, 

 White Daffodils, and Primrose pierelesse.' In the British 

 Museum Library there is Lyte's own annotated copy of 

 the French version of Dodoen's Herbal (translated by 

 Lyte in 1578), and over the figure of N. poeticus one may 

 read in Lyte's own writing, ' White primrose pyerles, 

 Laus tibi, and of some Daffodille.' This same book has 

 on the title-page the quaint inscription, ' Henry Lyte 

 taught me to speake Englishe.' It is pleasant to remember 

 that the true poet's narcissus, if not indigenous in 

 England, has probably been grown here without a break 

 since the days of the ancient Romans. Phillips in his Flora 

 Historica (1824), says, 'This Narcissus seldom produces 

 seed in England, even by the assistance of cultivation, 

 and we are therefore of opinion that the few plants which 

 have been found at Shorne, between Gravesend and 

 Rochester, as well as those discovered in Norfolk, are the 

 offsets from imported plants, probably of as early a date 

 as the time of the Romans, who, we may naturally con- 

 clude, would not fail to plant the flower of their favourite 

 poet, when we discover that they paved the floors of 

 their dwellings in this country with tessellae that rep- 

 resented his tales.' 



None of the modern varieties of the poet's narcissus 

 seem to have the wonderful scent of the old ' Pheasant's 

 Eye ' (iV, poeticus recurvus). And the orange-coloured 



J6 



