Stray Leaves from a Border Garden 
wort. In Cumberland I believe the Primula farinosa is 
still called Bird’s-eye, and there used to be a quaint little 
child’s rhyme which asserted that the “ lockety gowan and 
bonny birdeen were the fairest flowers that ever were seen.” 
The “ lockety gowan ” is the globeflower or trollius, which 
used to be called “locker goulon ” long ago, according to 
Parkinson, who also calls it the “ globe crowfoot.” A Border 
name for it which still, I think, survives in some places, was 
the “lucken gowan” and Trollflower or “witches’ gowan.” 
The Italians call it, I think, Pie corvino or Ranonculo , and a 
delightful Dutch name in Parkinson’s day was Hanenvoet , 
though I should rather imagine this more appropriate to 
the Crawtaes smaller species. The pretty Star of Bethlehem, 
sometimes called Eleven o’clock Ladye ( Dame d'onze 
heures), is now in bloom. Starflower is another nice old 
name for this, and “feld onion” it was also sometimes called. 
The Arabian Star of Bethlehem has a very quaint name in 
Spain : “ Oyoz de Christos,” or Christ’s eye, from its black 
centre. There is a pretty legend that the Star of Bethlehem 
was unknown till the Nativity, when on the following morning 
it was found starring the ground around where the young 
Child was born. There is a very pretty variety of this 
flower with backs to the flower petals like green satin. 
Columbines are beginning now, and lupines. Columbines 
or Culverworts, according to Parkinson, are “ flowers of 
that respect as that no gardener would willingly be without 
them that could tell how to have them.” They were some- 
times called “ pigeon grass,” and I have thought that the 
culverkeys in Isaak Walton’s pretty description may have 
been columbines, since I have seen them growing thickly in 
fields. Lupines I also delight in, and have planted both 
the white and yellow tree lupines ; it is such a graceful 
shrub ! The tall yellow asphodelline is showing its pretty 
yellow flower-spike. Here I found it went by the name of 
“ fuller’s teazle,” and had wrongfully enjoyed for a long 
time the credit of being of use in cloth-making. 
A curious old name for it is King’s Spear, with which 
I have rechristened it here. The African marigolds 
44 
