162 THE SHAKESPEARE GARDEN 



it is so well known and so frequent in every garden. 

 The stalk is of a blackish green color, having many 

 fair broad and long green leaves. The flower stands 

 upon long green footstalks, of a fair white color, 

 with a long pointell in the middle and white chives 

 tipt with yellow pendants about it. The smell is 

 something heady and strong. It is called Lilium 

 album, the White Lily, by most writers; but by 

 poets, Rosa Junonis, Juno's Rose." 



How perfect is this flower ! Texture, form, hue, 

 sheen, perfume all express exquisite loveliness. 

 The lily refreshes us with its cool beauty and its 

 purity and lifts our thoughts upward to heaven. 



Gerard describes eight lilies in his "Herbal" 

 (1597), all of which were known to Shakespeare. 

 Certainly among Perdita's flowers was the martagon, 

 which takes its name from the Italian martagone, 

 meaning a Turk's turban. This lily is also called 

 "Chalcedonian" and "Scarlet martagon" and 

 "Turk's Cap," by Parkinson, who tells us that the 

 "Lilium rubrum Byzantinum Martagon Constan- 

 tinopolitanum, or the red martagon of Constanti- 

 nople, is become so common everywhere and so well 

 known to all lovers of these delights that I shall 

 seem unto them to lose time to bestow many lines 

 upon it; yet because it is so fair a flower and was 



