FLO 
468 FLO 
fublimated particles of mineral bodies. See Chemistry, 
vo!. i'v. p. 150. 
To FLOW.'ER, v. n. [ flcvrir , Fr. or from the noun.] 
To re in flower} to be in bloflom ; to bloom; to put 
forth flowers : 
Then herbs of every leaf, that hidden flower'd, 
Op’ning their various colours. Milton. 
To leaflefs (hrubs the flow’ring palms fucceed. 
And od’rous myrtle to the noifome weed. Pope. 
To be in the prime; to flourifh : 
Whilome in youth, when flower'd my youthful fpring. 
Like fwallow fwift, I wander’d here and there ; 
For heat of heedlefs luft me did fo fling. 
That I of doubted danger had no fear. Spcnjer. 
To froth ; to ferment; to mantle, as new bottled beer.— 
An extreme clarification doth fpread the fpirits fo finooth 
that they become dull, and the drink dead, which ought 
to h ive a little flowering. Bacon. —To come as cream from 
the furface. — If you can accept of thefe few obfervations, 
which have flowered off, and are, as it were, the burntfhing 
of many ftudious and contemplative years, I here give 
you them to difpofe of. Milton 
To FLOW'ER, . v. a. To adorn with fictitious or imi¬ 
tated flowers. 
Mod of the flowers introduced into our gardens, and 
now cultivated either on account of their beauty, or the 
fragrance of their fmell, have been procured from plants 
which grew wild, and which have been changed, or, ac¬ 
cording to the opinion of florifts, improved by the art 
of the gardener. The greater part of them, however, 
came originally from diftant countries, where they grow 
in as great perfection as ours, without the afliftance of 
art. Though we often find mention of flowers in the 
wotks of the Greeks and the Romans, it appears that 
they were contented with thofe only which grew only in 
their own neighbourhood. The modern tafte for flowers 
came from Perfia to Conflantinople, and was imported 
thence to Europe, for the firft time, in the fixteenth cen¬ 
tury. At any rate, we find that the greater part of the 
productions of our flower-gardens were conveyed to 11s 
by that channel. Clufius and his friends, in .particular, 
contributed very much to excite this tafte ; and file new 
plants brought from both the Indies by the travellers 
who then continued flill more Frequently to vifit thefe 
countries, tended to increafe it. That period alfo pro¬ 
duced fome fkitful gardeners, who carried on a confider- 
able trade with the roots and feeds of flowers; and thefe 
likewife affifled to render it more general. Among thefe 
were John and Vefpafian Robin, gardeners to Henry IV. 
of France, and Emanuel Svveert, gardener to the emperor 
Rodolphus II. from whom the botanifts of that time pro¬ 
cured many rarities, as appears from different paflages 
of their works. Simon de Tovar, a Spanifh phyfician, 
brought the tuberofe to Europe, before the year 1594, 
from the Eaft Indies, where it grows wild in Java and 
Ceylon, and fent fome roots of it to Bernard Paludanus, 
who firft made the flower publicly known, in his Anno¬ 
tations on Linfchoten’s Voyage. The double tuberofes 
were firft procured from feed by one Le Cour, at Leyden, 
who kept them fcarce for fome years, by deftroying the 
roots, that they might not become common. The pro¬ 
pagation of them in mod countries is attended with dif¬ 
ficulties; but in Italy, Sicily, and Spain, it requires no 
trouble ; and at prefent the Genoefe fend a great many 
roots to England, Holland, and Germany. The oldeft 
botanifts chilled them among the hyacinths, and their mo¬ 
dern name poliantk.es tuberofa , was given them by Linnaeus, 
in Hortus Cliffortianus. 
The auricula, primula auricula, grows wild among the 
king mofs covered with fnow, on the confines of SwifTer- 
.aud and Steyermark ; whence it was brought to our gar¬ 
dens, where, by art and accident, it has produced more 
varieties than almoft any other fpecies of flower. We do 
not know who firft tranfplanted it from its native foil* 
Pluche fays only that fome roots were pulled up by Wal- 
loon merchants, and carried to BrufTels. This much is 
certain, that it was firft cultivated with care by the Fle¬ 
mings, who were very fuccefsful in propagating it. Pro- 
felfor Weifmantel, who deferves to be ranked amongft the 
principal writers on flowers, fays, that the auricula was 
deferibed ar.d celebrated by Ovid, Pliny, and Columella; 
yet the botanifts, even in the laft century, who fearched 
for plants in the works of the ancients with great dili¬ 
gence, and who took the liberty of making very bold 
afiertions, were not able to find any name that would 
correfpond with the auricula ; for the conjecture of Fa- 
bius Columna, that it is the alifma of Diofcorides, is 
highly improbable, as that Grecian author extols his 
plant, which was fond of water, on account of its medi¬ 
cinal virtues only. In the time of Clufius, mod of the 
varieties of the auricula were fcarce. 
The common fritillary, or chequered lily , fritillaria me - 
leagris, was firft obferved in fome parts of France, Hun¬ 
gary, Italy, and other warm countries, and introduced 
into gardens about the middle of the fixteenth century. 
At firft it was called lilium variegatum ; but Noel Cappe- 
ron, an apothecary at Orleans, who collected a great many 
fcarce plants, gave it the name of fritillaria, becaufe the 
red or reddifli-brown fpots of the flower form regular 
fquares, much like thofe of a chefs-board. It was firft 
called meleagris by Dodonaeus, becaufe the feathers o£ 
feme varieties of that fowl are variegated almoft in the 
fame manner. The roots of the magnificent crown impe¬ 
rial, fritillaria imperialis , were about the middle of the 
fixteenth century brought from Perfia to Conflantinople, 
and were carried thence to the emperor’s garden at Vienna, 
from which they were difperfed all over Europe. This 
flower was firft known by the Perfian name tuflac, until 
the Italians gave it that of corona mperiale, or crown im. 
perial. It has been imagined that the figure of it is t® 
be found reprefented on coins of Herod, and that, on 
this account, it has been celebrated as the lily fo much 
celebrated in Scripture. The Perfian lily , fritillaria Per. 
flea, which is nearly related to it, was made known almoft: 
about the fame time. The bulbs or roots were brought 
from Sufa to Conflantinople, and for that reafon it was 
formerly called lilium Suflanum. —African and French ma- 
rygolds, tagetes ercEla and patula, were, according to the 
account of Dodonarusand others, brought from Africa to 
Europe, at the time when the emperor Charles V. carried 
his arms againft Tunis. This, however, is improbable; 
for thefe plants are indigenous in South America, and 
were known to botanifts before that period under the name 
of caryopkyllus Indicus, from which is derived the French 
appellation otillet d'Inde. Codrus calls them, from their 
native country, tanacetum Peruvianum. 
Among the mod beautiful ornaments of our flower, 
gardens, is the bella-donna lily, amaryllis flormoflflima, the 
flower of which, compofed of fix petals, is of a deep-red 
colour; and inaftrong light, or when the fun fliines upon 
it, has an agreeable yellow luftre like gold. The firft 
roots of it ever feen in Europe were procured in 1593, 
on-board a fliip which had returned from South America, 
from Simon de Tovar, a phyfician at Seville. In the year 
follow ing, he fent a defeription of the flower to Clufius ; 
and as he had at the fame time fent fome roots to Bernard 
Paludanus, and count d’Aremberg, the former fent a 
dried flower, and the latter an accurate drawing of it, to 
Clufius, who publiflied it in 1601. Svveert, Bauhin, and 
Rudbeke, are evidently miftaken in aftigning the Eaft In¬ 
dies as the original country of this plant ; and Broke, who 
was not a botanift, but only a florid, is equally wrong in 
making it a native of the Levant. Tovar received it from 
South America, where it was found by Plunder and Bar- 
rere, and at a later period by Thiery de Menonville alfo. 
At firft it was clafted with the narcillus, and it was after¬ 
wards called lilio-narciflus, becaufe its flower refembled 
that of the lily, and its roots thofe of the narcillus. It 
4 was 
