USES OF PLANTS 79 



are for "sallets": others, as " beanes, cabbagis, 

 goordes, parseneps," are "herbes and rootes to 

 boile " : others are " strewing herbes " for the 

 chamber floor, and these include such fragrant 

 plants as " bassel, baulme, sweete fennell, and 

 lauender." Others again are for the still, or 

 " necessarie herbes to growe for Physick," while 

 yet another section is devoted to " herbes for 

 windowes and pots," and these, though many of 

 them were held of medicinal value, were clearly 

 in this particular connection primarily chosen for 

 their attractiveness. Amongst these appeals to the 

 aesthetic we find " collembines, cousleps, daffadon- 

 dillies, panncies, lillium cum valium," and many 

 others, one ambition set before the reader being 

 to grow "holiokes," a rather formidable under- 

 taking as a pot-flower for one's window-sill. 



The lillium cum valium, often called by old writers 

 the lily convally and the May lily, is the plant we 

 nowadays call the lily of the valley, 1 but to see this 

 at its best we must seek it in its woodland home. 2 

 It is abundant enough in some of our counties, 

 though rare elsewhere. Gerard, we see, writing 

 in 1633, says that "it groweth upon Hampstead 



1 " The sweet lily of the lowly vale, 

 The queen of flowers." 



KEATS. 



2 Botanically it is the Convallaria majalis, the generic name 

 signifying a dweller in the valley, the specific name indicating 

 May as its flowering season, 



