36 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



THE LILY OF THE VALLEY. 

 By Miss H. C. Philbrick, F.R.H.S. 



"Awake, 0 north wind; and come, thou south; blow upon rny garden that its 

 spices may flow forth." 



Convallaria majalis — the Lily of the Valley. What a host of 

 memories its very name conjures up ! And we are carried away captive, 

 for none can remember the time when he did not know and love this 

 flower of fragrance ; its beauty and its purity are all its own. Most 

 of us are probably much more familiar with the Lily of the Valley 

 as a garden flower than as a wild plant, but it is a true native 

 nevertheless, and may in many places be found in abundance. You 

 will bear in mind that it really is a plant of the woods, so that it 

 is only there, or in sheltered coppices, that there is any reasonable 

 hope of finding it. We may here, however, advantageously point 

 out that in foliage and general effect the broad-leaved garlic is very 

 similar to the Lily of the Valley (save in perfume), and both are found 

 in the same situation at the same period of the year and that more than 

 one of our friends have been previously disappointed by confounding the 

 two. Yet I think we shall all agree that the pure white clustering 

 starry blossoms of the garlic are very beautiful in themselves, and have 

 a full claim to be admired for what they are — not scouted for what they 

 fail to be. 



Londoners will hear with interest that in the time of the great botanist 

 Ray, the Lily of the Valley grew abundantly on Hampstead Heath. 



In 1590, in St. Leonard's Forest near Horsham in Sussex, where the 

 Lily of the Valley used to be seen in profusion, the local legend tells us 

 that the patron saint of the district, St. Leonard, waged a mortal combat 

 for many hours with a great and terrible • dragon. Though in the end 

 victorious, the saintly dragon- slayer by no means escaped scatheless, and 

 these large masses of snowy blossoms scattered over the forest sprang 

 from riis blood shed during the dread encounter. Anyone who in this 

 sceptical age has doubts can go and see the flowers for himself. In the 

 east of England, the Lily of the Valley has made a dwelling place in both 

 Essex and the sister county Suffolk, notably in Woodham Mortimer, the 

 High Woods near Colchester, and in Bentley Woods near Ipswich. It is 

 also common in many other English counties, very local or almost 

 wanting in others, while in Ireland and Scotland it would appear to be 

 scarcely indigenous, though it is indigenous in most parts of Europe from 

 Italy to Lapland. In the woods of Eileriedle, in the neighbourhood of 

 Hanover, the ground is covered with them ; these woods are visited every 

 Whit Monday, we are told, by numerous parties from Hanover, who 

 gather these delightful May flowers. 



It is sometimes called the May lily — many of the old names of 

 plants, as the pasque flower, Lent lily, St John's wort, and numerous 



