score flowers and more growing thick together on one plant with me, and an hundred flowers on another." This he calls the Martagon Pompony, and adds that it is of a yellowish red colour. The Dutch florists carried the cultivation of this bulb to great extent in the time of Parkinson; and at the present day it is not an uncommon sight to see in Ghent a thousand plants of the Lilium Superbum in flower at one time, forming the most brilliant effect of Lilies that can be conceived.

The Superb Martagon, Lilium Superbum, is a native of North America, and was first introduced (according to Martyn) from Pennsylvania, by Peter Collinson, Esq., in the year 1738, but Aiton makes its introduction as early as 1727. As this and some other of the Martagons are more tender than the common Lilies, it is advisable to cover the bulbs with old tanner's bark or coal-ashes during the winter, which may be removed after the frost is over, and before the plants appear above ground. Where these plants grow naturally, the roots are frequently eaten as food, being first roasted under the embers.

The Tiger-spotted Lily, Tigrinum, is a native of China it was first brought to this country in 1804, and is found equally hardy with the other Lilies of our garden. The Chinese call this flower Keun Tan, and it is a plant on which they bestow

much pains and care, in order to make it produce large and handsome flowers.

The root of the common White Lily was formerly esteemed valuable in medicine, but at the present time we believe it is entirely disregarded by the faculty, though it still holds a place in the good housewife's receipts for many cures. Godorus, serjeant-surgeon to Queen Elizabeth, is said to have cured many persons of the dropsy, with the juice of the root mixed with barley-flower, baked in cakes, and eaten with meat, instead of other bread, for the space of a month. The same surgeon relates, that he found by experience that the expressed juice of the bruised root, given for two or three days together in wine, expelled the poison of the pestilence, and caused it to break out in blisters on the skin. Dr. James says, "the flowers and roots are used, and that chiefly in external applications; they are emollient, suppling, and anodyne, good to dissolve and ripen hard tumors and swellings, and to break imposthumations." The root is frequently used for removing corns on the feet. Waller tells us in his Domestic Herbal, 1822, it has been applied externally in that species of abscess in the throat called a quinsy. He recommends three or four of these bulbs to be roasted in the embers till they become soft, then apply them to the part as hot as they can be borne; and he

assures us that he has witnessed a most excruciating pain in the ear instantly relieved by the application of one of these roots.

The ladies on the continent have long held in the highest esteem a cosmetic for the skin, which is prepared from these flowers by means of a vapour bath. It is said to improve and preserve the freshness of the complexion, and to remove pimples and freckles.

STOCK, OR GILLYFLOWER. Mathiola.

Natural Order Siliquosæ, or Cruciferæ. A Genus of the Tetra dynamia Siliquosa Class.

Fair is the Gillyflow'r of gardens sweet.

GAY.

And lavish Stock, that scents the garden round.

THOMSON.

Bring hether the Pincke and Purple Cullambine,
With Gelliflowers.

SPENSER.

THIS flower, which is now become the pride of every British parterre, from the gay palace to the humble cottage, has been made the emblem of lasting beauty; for, although it is less graceful than the Rose, and not so superb as the Lily, its splendour is more durable, and its fragrance of longer continuance. It was one of the earliest inmates of our gardens that was planted by the Dames of baronial castles, and from hence it was formerly called Castle Gilloflower, and Dame's Violet; for Violet was added to the name of many flowers that possessed either a purple tint, or an agreeable perfume. The name of Gillyflower was also common to several plants, as the Wall Gillyflower and the

Clove Gillyflower, &c. Our great lexicographer concludes that the word is corrupted from July Flower, because Lord Bacon says, "in July come Gillyflowers of all varieties ;" and Mortimer is also quoted, who writes, "Gillyflowers, or rather July Flowers, is called from the month they blow in ;" or, says Johnson, "from Giroflée, of the French." It is evidently not derived from July, since Chaucer, who frequently uses French words, spells it Gilofre. The learned Dr. Turner, in his History of Plants of 1568, calls it Gelouer, to which he adds the word Stock, as we would say, Gelouers that grow on a stem or stock, to distinguish them from the Clove Gelouers and the Wall Gelouers. Gerard, who succeeded Turner, and after him Parkinson, call it Gilloflower; and thus it travelled from its original orthography, until it was called July Flower by those who knew not whence it was derived. The name of Gillyflower is now but little used, and the appellation of these pretty flowers at present rests upon the Stock.

Few flowering plants have been so much and so rapidly improved by cultivation as the Stock, that has within these last two centuries had its nature so completely changed by the art of the florist, that what was, in the time of Queen Elizabeth, but one degree removed from a small mountain or sea-side flower, may now be compared to a