SOME OLD FAVOURITES AND NEW 75 



discriminating appreciation of a finely -formed 

 flower among amateurs. But the growers in 

 Holland know their business, as they have for 

 very many years, and splendid Narcissi are raised 

 there for the English market. 



Early in the seventeenth century we hear of the 

 " Men of the Lowe Countries " growing "iohnquills" 

 and calling them "trompetts." Even before that 

 the still popular Narcissus maximus was a favourite 

 flower in Dutch gardens, and we know that the 

 great botanists of the late sixteenth and early 

 seventeenth centuries were eager in their search for 

 and raising of new varieties. We have record of 

 " the Lady Mattenesse Daffodil " named of Clusius, 

 the first gallant Low Countryman to name a new 

 variety after a lady. This flower would seem to have 

 borne more resemblance to some of the ordinary 

 yellow sorts than to the choice N. Clusii, which 

 later generations have named in honour of the great 

 man himself. There are records, too, of that which 

 was first had from Vincent Sion, native of Flanders, 

 " an industrious and worthy lover] of fair flowers," 

 who, however, did not name his flower after him- 

 self or a lady, but grew it and at some time gave 

 offsets to " Mr. George Wilmer of Stratford Bowe, 

 Esquire, who would need appropriate it to himself, 



