Fleur-de-lis

“ They look well in a rock-garden.
FLOWER-DE-LUCE (fleur-de-lis) . There are many native American flags, or irises; but the plants nearest to those described by Parkinson are the Iris florentina, the Iris pseudacorus, and the great purple Turkey flag.
[Pg 310]
The Iris florentina grows from one to two feet, blooms in May and June, with large, delicately scented white flowers tinted blue and streaked with purple veins and having orange-yellow beards. The fragrant rootstock is the orris-root. Propagate by division in soil not too dry. This is an excellent border plant and prefers half-shade. ”

“ It likes a certain amount of moisture, but grows readily under almost all conditions. The German iris is an easy grower; the French fleur-de-lis is lovely with its more delicate blossom. Certain irises, to be sure, are particular about their quarters, but the two kinds mentioned are not. They like a certain amount of open space. ”

“ At the moment when the distant heights resounded with the fierce yells of the savages, and leaping forms came bounding down the slope, the remarkable warrior of the Fleur de lis--the fearful enemy who had whispered the most demoniac vengeance in his ears the preceding night--was the only one that met and riveted the gaze of the governor. He paused not to observe or to think who the flying man could be of whom the mysterious warrior was in pursuit,--neither did it, indeed, occur to him that it was a pursuit at all. ”

“ He must have then in some drawer of his cabin, a commission signed by some power or other. Well! should this commission bear the name of Louis, and be sealed with the fleur-de-lis of France, there can be no doubt that he would obey any order sealed, and signed by the same name.”
“This is all then that I wish to be informed of,” replied the young mousquetaire, who began to grow impatient at the strange and evasive answers given by his companion. “I will only ask you one more question.” “I am ready to obey your wishes in that, as I have in the rest, count,” returned the lieutenant. ”

“ Everybody has a favourite flower, I suppose—the white Iris is mine—the Fleur-de-lys of France—the lily of Florence. Nothing can be more refined and lovely than the thin, translucent petals. To see these flowers at their best, one must get up and go into the garden at five o’clock on some fine morning at the end of May. I did it once, and as I walked beside their shining rows in the clear daylight, I felt there were no such pearly shadows, nor any such strange purity in the whiteness of other flowers. ”

“ Gradually the fleur-de-lys gained some likeness to the natural lily. The sceptre was made of ivory. It was white. Two leaves appeared wreathing the stick. Midway in the transformation are the lilies carried by the lovely choir of seated angels in a picture by Guariento.223 Each angel holds in his left hand an orb and in the right a straight lily stem with181 leaves growing naturally up its whole length. At the top is a single flower, which, seen in profile, has the shape of the fleur-de-lys. Simone Martini indicates the blossom’s cup-like form. ”

“ As she sat there the scent of the lilies came more strongly than ever, and now with a curious effect. It was to the girl as if the fragrance were twining and winding about her and impelling her like leashes. All at once an impulse of yielding which was really freedom came to her. Why in the world should she not cross the little north yard, step over the low hedge, and go into that lily-garden? She knew that it would be beautiful there. She looked forth into the crystalline light and the soft plumy shade,—she would go over into the Ware garden. ”

“ THE IRIS The only rival to the lilium candidum as the lily of the Virgin is the iris. Strictly speaking, it is not a lily at all, for the Iridacea and the Liliacea are distinct botanical orders. But in Germany it is known as the sword-lily, from its sword-shaped leaves; in France it has always been identified with the ‘fleur-de-lys’; in Spain it is a ‘lirio’—a lily—and Shakespeare writes ”

“ Taking her in one arm and giving his wife the other, he took them to the parlor and after introducing them, said, "These are my Rose and Lilly, and in granting your desire to inform you where you may be able to obtain more of the same species, I have only to say that profiting by my experience, you must select your rose from the purest love, and you will never feel its thorn, and fairer than any hot-house plant will bloom the lily of your household." ”

“ While the Lily of the Valley is, strictly speaking, not a Lily, it deserves mention here. It is one of the most beautiful flowers we grow, of the purest white, and with the most delightful fragrance, and foliage that admirably sets off the exquisite loveliness of its flowers. ”

“ Almond-eyed and jasmine-bosomed, like a poet stringing pearls.
In my tranquil cypress mazes just outside the sleepy town,
Blooms a tribe of laughing lilies fairer than a kingly crown. [Pg 8]
Every lily in the garden wears a woman’s gracious name,
Every lily in the garden set my spirit once aflame;
And amongst that throng of lilies scarcely whiter than his hair,
Hafiz sits and dreams at sunset of the flowers no longer fair ”

“ If you are unable to obtain one of the beautiful, fresh flowers, do the next best thing; make a lily—a stately, graceful white blossom on a long, dark-green stalk. The flower is lovely even when manufactured of tissue-paper, and can be made to look so natural that one almost expects to find the sweet, delicate perfume of the real blossom. ”

“ Here from the thickets, standing with their roots in the rich, loamy soil of the brookside, gleam the small orange blossoms of the little alpine lily—little only in flower, for the slender stems often rise to a height of six feet, producing several whorls of rich green leaves. These lilies are but an inch or an inch a half long, with their perianth-segments yellow or orange below and deeper orange-vermilion above, their tips only being rolled backward. ”

“ Many white flowers are far more beautiful by day; the lily, for instance, with its firm, thick leaf, needs the broadest light to manifest its purity. But these transparent leaves of greenish white, which look dull in the day, are melted by the moon to glistening silver. ”

“ It was certainly largely grown in Europe in the Middle Ages, and was universally acknowledged by artists, sculptors, and architects, as the emblem of female elegance and purity, and none of us would dispute its claim to such a position. There is no other Lily which can surpass it, when well grown, in stateliness and elegance, with sweet-scented flowers of the purest white and the most graceful shape, and crowning the top of the long leafy stem with such a coronal as no other plant can show. ”

“ He showed me the book of nature, and I understood that every flower created by Him is beautiful, that the brilliance of the rose and the whiteness of the lily do not lessen the perfume of the violet or the sweet simplicity of the daisy. I understood that if all the lowly flowers wished to be roses, nature would lose its springtide beauty, and the fields would no longer be enamelled with lovely hues. ”

“ But the sight of that glorious plant rising proudly from amidst the greenery of its forest setting will be for us more than any picture. And its being "wild" has the same fascination for us that a flower that is "wild," and not garden grown, has for a child. In a florist's shop we may see lilies even more beautiful than this, but the enjoyment we get from seeing the florist's production bears no comparison whatever with the enjoyment we get from seeing this lily in a distant Himalayan forest where not so many white men ever go. We often have experiences which perceptibly age us. ”

“ This would suggest that plant myths are founded mainly on true and inherent facts rather than on passing fancies. Almost all the nations have chosen the Rose for the queen of the floral court, and therefore the most fitting symbol of love. The White Lily has purity written on its spotless petals, and could never stand for anything else, anywhere. ”

“ I gather a huge bunch of damask-petalled tea-roses, heavy with perfume, and smelling as attar never smells. As I go along the walk with the mossy edge, in which lizards and strangely beautiful beetles play hide-and-seek in the sun, in search of some gardenias, the stanzas of a native poet stray through my mind, commencing"
“The dew shines on the lily; and the rose opens her crimson heart to greet the rising sun.” ”

“ All the lilies in the garden had done flowering, but these, more pure and more luxuriant, through shade and shelter, were then in their full perfection, and filled the air with their delightful fragrance. The children called them sister's lilies, because when she was a child she had planted them. We generally brought pieces of bread with us, to eat with our fruit, and the wilderness being our favorite retreat, we played there at all times in the day. ”

“ We have half a dozen species of beautiful native [Pg 273] lilies, but like some of our most exquisite ferns they depend much for their attractiveness upon the setting their natural haunts offer, and I do not like to see them caged, as it were, within strict garden boundaries.
The red wood-lily should be met among the great brakes of a sandy wood edge, where white leafless wands of its cousin, star-grass, or colic root, wave above it, and the tall late meadow-rue and white angelica fringe the background. ”

“ Like a flat red lily with a million petals She unfolds, she comes undone. A sharp sky brushes upon The myriad glittering chimney-tips As she gently exhales to the sun. Hurrying creatures run Down the labyrinth of the sinister flower. ”

“ Each lover in his lady’s face
Sees roses blent with lilies’ grace:
[Pg 31]
The poet & the painter praise
This heraldry of summer days;
[Pg 32]
And every garden sweet that blows
Doth set the Lily by the Rose. ”

“ At the time when the lilies and roses were in full bloom and when the garden was resplendent with beautiful flowers, the old man, seeing his daughter filled with joy, pointed to a lily unfolding in the rays of the morning sun. "See, in this lily, my daughter, the symbol of innocence. Its leaves are finer than richest satin, and its whiteness equals that of the driven snow. Happy is the daughter whose heart also is pure, for remember the words, 'The pure in heart shall see God.' The more pure the colour, the more difficult to preserve its purity. ”

“ LILIES. The lily bed should be deep—three feet if possible,—the soil open and porous without being light. There cannot be a better material than sound fibrous loam with which leaf-mold has been mixed. Lilies are rarely benefited by animal manure. The bed should be sheltered from boisterous winds, for lilies lose half their beauty if it becomes necessary to stake their graceful stems, and partially shaded so that the sun does not parch the ground, or prematurely wither their dainty petals. ”

“ Just as many members of the lily tribe show a preference for the rule of three in the arrangements of their floral parts, so the wild roses cling to the quinary method of some primitive ancestor, a favorite one also with the buttercup and many of its kin, the geraniums, mallows, and various others. Most of our fruit trees and bushes are near relatives of the rose. Five petals and five sepals, then, we always find on roses in a state of nature ”

“ All gardeners ask each other ‘Why do we see great healthy clumps of this lovely Lily in poor little neglected cottage gardens, while in our highly-fed and carefully-tended ones it gets the now well-known Lily disease?’ We hope your Madonna Lilies will not get it, because it is rather heart-breaking to watch its ravages. In the spring you see fine, healthy leaves, and you look forward to the tall stems that will arise from them and bear great scented, shining white flowers. But one day you notice that the leaves look rather brown. A stem has shot up, but the leaves on it look brown, too. ”

“ You take a Lily-of-the-Valley from its vase, attracted irresistibly by its scent, and find it fast set in a corsetière of steel—each leaf and stalk, almost each separate blossom, wired. This gives you a horrid feeling; you idly untwist the cruel bonds, and then the poor flower droops or falls to pieces.
In the ballroom dreadful things are suffered by the Roses. Fancy a curtain all made of these lovely flowers, wired together in long trails to match the festoons that wave softly overhead! ”

“ The beautiful White Lily cannot be grown in the hot sandy soil of my garden. Even if its place be ever so well prepared with the loam and lime that it loves, the surrounding soil-influences seem to rob it of its needful nourishment; it makes a miserable show for one year and never appears again. The only way to grow it is in pots or tubs sunk in the soil. For some years I had wished to have an orderly planting of this lovely Lily in the lower border at the back of the Andromeda just in front of the Briars. ”

“ Deep beds of lilies-of-the-valley grow everywhere beneath the trees; and in the meadows purple columbines, white asphodels, the Alpine spiræa, tall, with feathery leaves, blue scabious, golden hawkweeds, turkscap lilies, and, better than all, the exquisite narcissus poeticus, with its crimson-tipped cup, and the pure pale lilies of San Bruno, are crowded in a maze of dazzling brightness. ”

“ I have a picture of her coming towards me with her arms full of flowers, burying her face lovingly among the velvet petals, and raising it again, the sweetest flower of all. How radiantly outshone her eyes, and her face, delicate as a cameo, seemed to have stolen the fairest tints of the lily and the rose.
Starry vines screened the porch, and everywhere were swinging baskets of silver birch, brimming over with the delicate green of smilax or clouded in an amethystine mist of lobelias. ”