A MUCH VALUED FLOWER 3 



crowned." And Virgil in his fifth Eclogue alludes to 

 Narcissus Poeticus as " purpureus Narcissus," " the 

 brightly shining Narcissus," or (less probably) " the 

 empurpled Narcissus." 



But it was not only the theme of poets, it was in 

 frequent use in old times as a decorative flower, and 

 largely in connection with death and burial. That it 

 was used before the Christian era in the making of 

 funeral wreaths is known from the actual evidence of 

 specimens of the Tazetta flower which, after long 

 entombment, were unearthed in 1888, from an ancient 

 cemetery at Hawara. 



If we seek further proof of the way in which the 

 Daffodil has entwined itself around the hearts of men 

 and commended itself to them in their pleasures and 

 sorrows, in their pensive and in their more joyous moods, 

 we shall find such a proof in the long list of our English 

 poets who have sung its praises — Green, Shakespeare, 

 Spencer, Milton, Herrick, Keats, Shelley, Wordsworth 

 and Tennyson, these are only a few of the great English 

 singers with whom the Narcissus has been a household 

 word. 



As to the more practical side — viz., the history of its 

 cultivation in gardens — the various kinds known to the 

 older cultivators and the best methods of growing them 

 are treated of by a very long series of writers both at 

 home and abroad ever since the sixteenth century. We 

 find these things mentioned or described in Turner's 

 "Herbal" (1548); by Lobel (1570); by Clusius in his 

 " Rariorum Stirpium Historise" (Antwerp, 1576), in 

 which several species are described and figured ; by 

 Gerarde (1596) in his "Herbal," with descriptions of 

 twenty-four different kinds all growing in his time in 

 London gardens ; by Parkinson (1629) in his " Paradisus 

 Terrestris," in which descriptions and woodcuts are 

 given of nearly a hundred varieties, and by many others. 



