50 FAMILIAR GARDEN FLOIFERS. 



renowned for beauty^ or fragrance^ or some special quality 

 that would command the attention of a writer of holy song 

 when his imagination sought for emblems wherewith to 

 strew the Ijanqueting house that ^vas adorned with the 

 banner of love. It is impossible for any one to determine 

 what particular flower the text refers to. There are at 

 least half a dozen species of wild roses in Palestine^ and 

 the cabbage and damask roses are^ and for any length of 

 time past have been, cultivated there. But the difficulty 

 is for the lexicographers and the travellers first, and the 

 botanists afterwards. The mallow produces gorgeous 

 masses of colour in the plains of Sharon, and may be the 

 " rose " that Solomon has so charmingly dignified. But 

 the lily and the narcissus also abound there ; and the word 

 rendered " rose " in the English version is of such general 

 application that it might in some cases be translated half 

 a dozen different wa\"s without any perversion of the 

 spiritual or poetical purport of the text. Its association 

 with the " lily of the valleys " suggests something dif- 

 ferent to either the rose or the hj/pericum, such as some 

 shade-loving bulbous plant. Sir George Grove indicates 

 his belief that the rose of Sharon was the " tall, graceful, 

 and striking squill.'' 



It was the opinion of Linnseus, in which he was sup- 

 jiorted by obsei'vant travellers, that a species of cistus 

 is the real rose of Sharon. Our pretty lld'uuiihemiun 

 rulgare, which produces most elegant yellow flowers, and 

 thus forms rich carpets of gold on ledges of rock in lime- 

 stone districts — notably in Bonsai Dale, Derbyshire — is 

 the best representative, probably, we have of this view of 

 the case. The particular plant, however, which Linnteus 

 elected to the honour is Cidus ronem, a plant more 



