8 
THE FLOWER OF BRISTOWE. 
It is not surprising- that the plant should have often come into 
this country by way of this city, because we know from local 
records how regular and important was the trade to and fro between 
Constantinople, the Levant, and Bristol, during the 15th and i6th 
centuries. I need only recall that John Cabot, about A.D. 1475, 
came to Bristol from Venice, when the Italian ports were engaged 
in such great traffic with Western Europe in the products from 
the East. This trading continued to increase in importance till 
some time after Gerard wrote describing this flower. At length, 
in the 17th century, the Merchant Venturers of Bristol decided 
to enter into competition with the Italian States, and send out 
their own ships direct to the Ionian Islands and the Levant, to 
trade independently of traffic passing through Italian merchants. 
Strong support to the supposition that the name of the plant was 
derived from its colour comes from quite another source. Many 
years before Gerard wrote in A.D. 1597, different towns were 
celebrated for the coloured woollens which they produced for 
common wear, and it is known that Bristol was associated with 
the colour red, because in a book on general information, published 
A.D. 1530, it is stated that “ at Brystowe is the best water to 
dye red.” What more natural, therefore, than that the people 
accustomed to get their red colours from Bristol traders should 
regard the brilliant scarlet of the Lychnis as the unrivalled or 
Nonesuch red, and that plant, and that aloqe, as the Flower of 
Bristowe. 
I think there can be no doubt that this is how the Scarlet 
Lychnis came to be known widely amongst the English, and that 
it owed its special favour amongst them to its easy propagation 
and the brilliancy of its colour. If we can go back for from 300 
to 400 years and find the popularity of this particular shade of 
scarlet associated with Bristol, surely we may argue in this 
present year that, if it should be again brought prominently 
before the people of England as belonging to this city, it will 
continue to attract them, and serve as an incentive to many 
students to gain the honour of wearing a scarlet academical hood 
of the University of Bristol. 
