COLOUR IN MY GARDEN 



brown." A friend tells me that in her grandmother's 

 garden in New York State Wallflowers were always called 

 Gillyflowers. 



Stocks were also called Gillyflowers and sometimes also 

 White Wallflowers; and our Sweet Rocket (Hesperis ma- 

 tronalis) was known as Queen's Gillyflower. A sort of 

 Campion was the Marsh Gillyflower, and the great Thrift 

 was known as Sea Gillyflower; and there were doubtless 

 many others that shared the name. 



I think the flower with the greatest number of names 

 must be the Marsh Marigold. Mrs. Earl says it is the 

 proud possessor of fifty-six. The Pansy, a loved flower of 

 all ages, has attached to itself almost as many. The flower 

 that comes down the years without winning one or more 

 pet names has somehow failed to draw close to the lives 

 of the human beings beside whom it has grown. There are 

 not many old-fashioned flowers of which this may be said, 

 but it is a curious fact that a flower so appealing and 

 distinctive as the Crocus should be one. Crocuses have 

 been grown in gardens since the early part of the seventeenth 

 century but none as far as I can ascertain has acquired a 

 common name save Crocus sativus, which was called 

 Saffron or Saff-flower. Its relative the Colchicum, on the 

 other hand, boasts quite a number, the quaintness and 

 intimate character of which seem to imply a special affection 

 for the jaunty little autumn flower. 



The Zinnia, a flower of the nineteenth century intro- 

 duction, has drawn to itself a most old-fashioned sounding 

 name, that of Youth-and-old-age, but the Dahlia and the 

 Cosmos, which also are of yesterday have, so far, in spite 



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