[65:1] Drayton also allotted the Cowslip as the special Fairies' flower--
"For the queene a fitting bower, (Quoth he) is that tall Cowslip flower."--_Nymphidia._
There with fantastic garlands did she come Of Crow-flowers, Nettles, Daisies, and Long Purples.
The Crow-flower is now the Buttercup,[67:1] but in Shakespeare's time it was applied to the Ragged Robin (_Lychnis flos-cuculi_), and I should think that this was the flower that poor Ophelia wove into her garland. Gerard says, "They are not used either in medicine or in nourishment; but they serve for garlands and crowns, and to deck up gardens." We do not now use the Ragged Robin for the decking of our gardens, not that we despise it, for it is a flower that all admire in the hedgerows, but because we have other members of the same family as easy to grow and more handsome, such as the double variety of the wild plant, L. Chalcedonica, L. Lagascæ, L. fulgens, L. Haagena, &c. In Shakespeare's time the name was also given to the Wild Hyacinth, which is so named by Turner and Lyte; but this could scarcely have been the flower of Ophelia's garland, which was composed of the flowers of early summer, and not of spring. (See Appendix, p. 388.)
[67:1] In Scotland the Wild Hyacinth is still called the Crow-flower--
"Sweet the Crow-flower's early bell Decks Gleniffer's dewy dell, Blooming like thy bonny sel, My young, my artless dearie, O."
The Crown Imperial is a Fritillary (_F. imperialis_). It is a native of Persia, Afghanistan, and Cashmere, but it was very early introduced into England from Constantinople, and at once became a favourite. Chapman, in 1595, spoke of it as--
"Fair Crown Imperial, Emperor of Flowers."
Gerard had it plentifully in his garden, and Parkinson gave it the foremost place in his "Paradisus Terrestris." "The Crown Imperial," he says, "for its stately beautifulnesse deserveth the first place in this our garden of delight, to be here entreated of before all other Lillies." George Herbert evidently admired it much--
"Then went I to a garden, and did spy A gallant flower, The Crown Imperial."
And if not in Shakespeare's time, yet certainly very soon after, there were as many varieties as there are now. The plant, as a florist's flower, has stood still in a very remarkable way. Though it is apparently a plant that invites the attention of the hybridizing gardener, yet we still have but the two colours, the red and the yellow (a pure white would be a great acquisition), with single and double flowers, flowers in tiers, and with variegated leaves. And all these varieties have existed for more than two hundred years.