SOUTH LONDON PARKS 
I 7 I 
plants mentioned in Shakespeare’s works. A little know¬ 
ledge is a dangerous thing, and the unwary might not 
realise that the flowers of Shakespeare’s time, although 
undoubtedly there, only form a small portion of the 
whole display. The board is literally true, but visitors 
are apt to go away with the idea that brilliant dahlias, 
and gaudy calceolarias, or even the most modern intro¬ 
duction, Kochia tricophila , were friends of Shakespeare’s ! 
A large number of the plants, however, are truly of the 
Elizabethan age, that golden time of progress in garden¬ 
ing as well as of other arts, when spirited courtiers and 
hardened old sailors alike scoured the seas and brought 
strange plants from new lands. Many of these now 
familiar treasures from east and west flourish in this little 
enclosure, and recall the romantic days of the sixteenth 
century: the Marvel of Peru—the very name tells the 
delight that heralded its arrival from the West—the 
quaint Egg-plant (Solarium ovigerum) brought from 
Africa, and the bright-seeded Capsicums from India. 
Even the bush, with its wealth of white or purple flowers, 
the Hibiscus Syriacus , was known in those days, though 
not by that name. Gerard, in describing it, says it was 
a stranger to England ; “ notwithstanding, I have sowen 
some seedes of them in my garden, expecting successe.” 
That delightful confidence, which is the great charac¬ 
teristic of all these old gardeners, was not abused, appa¬ 
rently, in this case, for two years later, in the catalogue 
of plants in his garden, 1599, this great tree mallow was 
flourishing. Many of the gourds, which are grown to 
great advantage in this little garden, were also known at 
an early date. Gerard says of them, “ they joy in a 
fruitful soil, and are common in England.” Were it not 
for the conspicuous little notice-board, no fault could be 
