142 GARDENS OF ENGLAND 



Upon her head a cremosin coronet 

 With Damaske roses and DafFodiUies set, 



Bay leaves betweene, 



And primroses greene, 

 Embellish the sweete violet. 



The primrose in Drayton's Garland, though 

 sweet, was not the green one. 



A course of cowslips then I'll stick. 

 And here and there (though sparely). 

 The pleasant Primrose down I'll prick. 

 Like pearls which will show rarely. 



Gerard mentions and figures a double white 

 primrose, but one is left to conjecture if he had the 

 plant at all. It is certainly suspicious that it is not 

 mentioned in the catalogue of 1599, nor do we hear 

 of it elsewhere. Parkinson refers to the common 

 double only, and remarks that, though better known 

 in the west parts of the ' kingdom and in the 

 north, primroses were uncommon in the vicinity 

 of London. 



A quarter of a century later Rea introduces us 

 to a great variety of sorts, "there being about 

 twenty diversities of reds some deeper and others 

 lighter, from blood red to pale Pink colour, some 

 Dove colour, others of the colour of an old Buff 

 coat, some fair red." " The Scarlet and the Red 

 hose-in-hose and the double red," " the rarest of all 



