HONESTY REARING 271 



wood put into it, wherein I have found many times 

 marvellous commoditie." 



Honesty should find a place in our regard, not 

 only morally but horticulturally. It is ordinarily 

 a very easy plant to grow, and its cruciform purple 

 blossoms are attractive. It flowers freely, and when 

 once established keeps itself going each year by its 

 self-sown seedlings. We qualify our cultural remark 

 by an added " ordinarily," as we recall that a legal 

 friend of ours was so struck with it that he en- 

 deavoured to introduce it into his garden. It reso- 

 lutely refused to grow, and thereby gave his friends, 

 who declined to see in it merely a curious coinci- 

 dence, occasion to make unkind remarks. The 

 seed-vessels are very large, circular, flat, of a silvery 

 sheen, and semi-transparent, so that one can readily 

 detect the seeds contained therein. The plant de- 

 rives its name of honesty from these seed-carriers, 

 but these are at best but semi-transparent ; the plant 

 should therefore, presumably, be termed modified 

 honesty, and this is not honesty at all. It is a 

 plant of many names, and all of them descriptive : 

 lunaria, 1 penny-flower, silver-platter, money-flower, 

 while in France it is the medal-plant, white satin 

 plant, and wherever we find it elsewhere abroad 

 it will be known by some such name. Drayton 



1 " And herbes coude I tell eke many on, 

 As egrimaine, valerian, and lunarie." 



CHAUCER. 



