72 DUTCH BULBS AND GARDENS 



Crowne Imperial for his stately beautifulness, 

 deserveth the first place in this our garden of 

 delights." And judging from some of the legends 

 that have gathered about the flower, one imagines 

 k was cultivated and admired even earlier. But 

 during the nineteenth century it went out of 

 favour, for some reason the " refined and elegant " 

 ceased to admire it and gardeners to cultivate it, 

 other flowers filling the place in popular favour. 



No gorgeous flowers the meek Reseda grace, 

 Yet sip, with eager trunk, yon busy race 



Her simple cup, nor heed the dazzling gem 

 That beam in Fritillaria's diadem — 



wrote a drawing-room poet of the early nineteenth 

 century ; and though the beautifully banal — also 

 botanically and every other way incorrect — lines 

 must not be regarded as exactly expressing the 

 minds of his compeers, yet the fact that they were 

 written and quoted shows favour was not then for 

 the Crown Imperial. It is coming back to the 

 present generation ; possibly, in England at least, 

 because a certain number of the old bulbs were 

 preserved in cottage gardens, and so acquired the 

 reputation of simplicity and old-fashionedness, now 

 so frequently a passport to favour. 



But though the Crown Imperial is being grown 



