17c 
Old Time Gardens 
eral universal winter posies. On the narrow mantel 
shelves of farm and village parlors, both in England 
and America, still is seen a winter posy made of dried 
stalks of the seed valves of a certain flower; they 
are shown on the opposite page. Let us see how 
our old friend, Gerarde, describes this plant : — 
“ The stalkes are loden with many flowers like the 
stocke-gilliflower, of a purple colour, which, being fallen, 
the seede cometh foorthe conteined in a flat thinne cod, 
with a sharp point or pricke at one end, in fashion of the 
moone, and somewhat blackish. This cod is composed of 
three filmes or skins whereof the two outermost are of an 
overworne ashe colour, and the innermost, or that in the 
middle whereon the seed doth hang or cleave, is thin and 
cleere shining, like a piece of white satten newly cut from 
the peece.” 
In the latter clause of this striking description is 
given the reason for the popular name of the flower, 
Satin-flower or White Satin, for the inner septum is a 
shining membrane resembling white satin. Another 
interesting name is Pricksong-flower. All who have 
seen sheets of music of Elizabethan days, when the 
notes of music were called pricks, and the whole 
sheet a pricksong, will readily trace the resemblance 
to the seeds of this plant. 
Gerarde says it was named u Penny-floure, Money- 
floure, Silver-plate, Sattin, and among our women 
called Elonestie.” The last name was commonly 
applied at the close of the eighteenth century. It is 
thus named in writings of Rev. William Hanbury, 
1771, and a Boston seedsman then advertised seeds 
