130 FAMILIAR WILD FLO WEES. 



and pink being the prevailing colours ; and it is no doubt 

 partly on this account that we, even involuntarily, admire 

 the more the soft turquoise-blue of the forget-me-not, the 

 deeper blue of the germander speedwell, or the rich empurpled 

 azure of the wild hyacinth. 



One old name of the flower is the Canterbury-bell. 

 It is difficult to see why the name of this particular place 

 should be so identified with the plant. On turning to 

 Prior's most valuable work on " The Popular Names of 

 British Plants," we find that he says, " So named by Gerarde, 

 from growing very plentifully in the low woods about 

 Canterbury." On turning to the old herbalist's pages to 

 verify this, it does not in any way appear that Gerarde 

 himself bestowed the name. He simply states that the 

 plant " growes very plentifully in the low woods and hedge- 

 rowes of Kent, about Canterbury, Sittingbourne, Graves- 

 end, Southfleet, and Greenehyth ; " but he also records it as 

 occurring at Greenwich, and " in most of the pastures about 

 Watford and Bushey, fifteene miles from London."" All 

 these localities are in the districts that a man like Gerarde, 

 a resident in the metropolis, might be expected to know 

 well. 



To make matters more involved, Gerarde, without any 

 valid reason, calls another species of campanula the Coventry- 

 bell. He seems to have seen these " pleasant bel-floures " 

 growing freely at Coventry and Canterbury respectively, 

 and as the natives gave them the local names, he adopted 

 them without fully considering that plants there abundant 

 might be at least as common in fifty other localities. We 

 have seen the Canterbury-bell in profusion in Yorkshire, and 

 about Kendal the plant is so abundant that it is worth the 

 while of the poorer people to collect the young shoots, and 



