^ T'he Scented Qarden $£ 



Crown imperials, some would say, are not for the 

 scented garden, but their strong 'foxy ' smell is rather 

 pleasing, and I think, as a contrast to the sweetness of 

 most of the spring scents, it has an attraction of its own. 

 This £ gallant flower,' as George Herbert described it, is 

 certainly one of the handsomest of spring flowers and it 

 has been a favourite since Elizabethan days, when it was 

 introduced from Constantinople (it is a native of Afghan- 

 istan, Persia and the Crimea). Few flowers are so aptly 

 named, for when the weighty seed-pods are formed they 

 rise and form a perfect crown. John Lawrence gives 

 another old name for the flower. ' The Crown Imperial,' 

 he says, ' is by the Vulgar called Crown and Pearl by way 

 of Corruption of the Word.' Gervase Markham in The 

 English Husbandman (161 3) says, ' The Crowne-Emperiall 

 is of all flowers both Forraigne and home-bred the deli- 

 cat est and strangest ; it hath the true shape of an 

 Emperiall Crowne, and will be of divers colours, according 

 to the Art of the Gardner. In the middest of the flower 

 you shall see a round Pearle stand, in proportion colour 

 and orientnesie like a true naturall Pearle, onely it is of a 

 soft liquid substance : This Pearle if you shake the 

 flower never so violently will not fall off, neither if you 

 let it continue never so long will it either encrease or 

 diminish in the bignesse, but remayneth all one ; yet if 

 with your finger you take and wipe it away, in lesse then 

 an houre after you shall have another arise in the same 

 place, and of the same bignesse. This Pearle if you taste 

 it upon your tongue is pleasant and sweet like honey.' 

 The legend that the crown imperial now for ever bows 

 its head because in the Garden of Gethsemane it failed 

 to do so on the night of Our Lord's Agony in the Garden, 

 62 



