Gillyflower

“ There bloomed the flower of the bitter orange, as it were pearls and coral, the rose whose redness puts to shame the cheeks of the fair, the violet, like sulphur on fire by night, the myrtle, the gillyflower, the lavender, the peony and the blood-red anemone. ”

“ A prize is always given for the prettiest garden among all the cottagers. This is an excellent plan; it brightens and beautifies the village street for eight months in the year. In May the rich brown and gold of the gillyflower is seen on every side, and their fragrance is wafted far and wide by every breeze that blows. ”

“ A plant of the mint family, Origanum Majorana, peculiarly aromatic and fragrant, flowers purplish pink. ↑ St. Bartholomew's day, August 24 O. S. ↑ Gilliflowers. Gillyflower is a name that has been applied to various plants whose blossoms smell like the clove (Old French, girofle, or clove) , and especially to the clove-scented pink, Dianthus Caryophyllus, or Clove-gillyflower. The clove-gillyflower is the original of the carnation and other double pinks in cultivation, and it is the gillyflower of Chaucer, Spenser, Shakspere, and Bacon. ”

“ In those dialects in which the name gillyflower is still current, it is commonly applied, either to the Wall-flower (Cheiranthus Cheiri) , or Wall-Gillyflower, or to the White Stock (Matthiola Incana) , or Stock-Gillyflower. Bacon's garden contains all three, pinks, stocks, and wall-flowers. The wall-flower is a native of southern Europe, where its deep orange-yellow flowers light up old walls and cliffs. In cultivation, the flowers range in color from pale yellow to deep red, and are clustered in short racemes. Wall-flowers are "delightful to be set" under windows because of their sweet odor. ”

“ In both these cases, however, it is the clove-gillyflower which is intended, as it is also in the passage from Gerard, in which he states that the conserve made of the flowers with sugar “is exceeding cordiall, and wonderfully above measure doth comfort the heart, being eaten now and then.” The principal other plants which bear the name are the wallflower, Cheiranthus Cheiri, called wall-gillyflower in old books; the dame’s violet, Hesperis matronalis, called variously the queen’s, the rogue’s and the winter gillyflower ”

“ I conceive, that bitter and strong herbs, as Rosemary, Bayes, Sweet-marjoram, Thyme, and the like, do conserve Meathe the better and longer, being as it were in stead of hops. But neither must they, no more than Clove-gilly-flowers, be too much boiled: For the Volatil pure Spirit flies away very quickly. Therefore rather infuse them. Beware of infusing Gillyflower in any vessel of Metal, (excepting silver:) For all Metals will spoil and dead their colour. Glased earth is best.
SACK WITH CLOVE-GILLY FLOWERS
If you will make a Cordial Liquor of Sack with Clove-gilly-flowers, you must do thus. ”

“ As to the “streaked gillivors, which some call nature’s bastards,” we find that Bacon has much to say concerning experiments in the colouration and variation of these gillyflowers. In the Natural History (Cent. VI, 506) , he writes: “Amongst curiosities I shall place coloration, though it be somewhat better: for beauty in flowers is their pre-eminence. It is observed by some that gillyflowers ... that are coloured, if they be neglected, and neither watered, nor new molded, nor transplanted, will turn white.” ”

“ The old name of July-flower, gilli-flower, or gylofre was but a corruption of caryophyllus—the nut-leaved clove tree—which name it earned by its delicious spicy scent. Much more regard was paid to fragrance by the old gardeners and flower-lovers than seems to be the case to-day, and it is very much to be regretted that many of the most beautiful of the newer varieties of carnation are nearly scentless, or as nearly [58] scentless as any member of the family can be. In ordinary good garden soil most of the carnations can be easily grown. ”

“ Flowers.—Rose or lilac, blending inward to white, with darker color or yellow in the throat. Calyx.—Five-cleft. Corolla.—Nine to twelve lines across; fringed. (See Gilia.) Hab.—From Santa Barbara to San Diego.
In March our southern meadows and hill-slopes are all aglow with the lovely flowers of this charming little Gilia. The plants are tiny, often no more than an inch high, but are ambitious out of all proportion to their size, covering themselves with blossoms exquisitely delicate in texture, form, and coloring, which literally carpet the earth with an overlapping mosaic. ”

“ CARNATIONS (Dianthus caryophyllus) . Perdita calls carnations and streak'd gilliflowers "the fairest flowers o' the season." Carnation was originally spelled coronation, because the flower was used to make crowns, garlands, and wreaths. In the days of Pliny it was called dianthus, or flower of Jove, and was also worn in wreaths and crowns. From Chaucer we know that it was cultivated as the "Clove Gilliflower" in English gardens; and because it was used to add a spicy flavor to wine and ale, it acquired the popular name of "sops in wine." Hence Spenser in his "Shepherd's Calendar" sings ”

“ If there is peace anywhere, it will be among the olives.”
His heart beat violently, giving him a sense of suffocation.
They left the dusty road, and mounted the banks silently, twisting in and out up the narrow path over slopes covered with yellow broom and magenta gladiolus, with snowy garlic flower, purple vetch, and masses of mauve wild thyme. The scent from the pine needles and the sage-plant rose from the cooling earth as the heat of the vivid, glaring day gave way under the clouds driven up by the rising wind. ”

“ But would it not have been rather hard on me to have had to forsake my books for the sake of Gilray's flowers and flower-pots and plants and things? What right has a man to go and make a garden of his chambers?
All the three weeks he was away, Gilray kept pestering me with letters about his chrysanthemum. He seemed to have no faith in me—a detestable thing in a man who calls himself your friend. I had promised to water his flower-pot; and between friends a promise is surely sufficient. It is not so, however, when Gilray is one of them. ”

“ Gladiolus prefers a light loam, or a moist sandy soil. Fresh manure will prove injurious. Mr. Allen tells us, in his book on "Bulbs, etc.," that "flowering bulbs of this plant may be produced from seed with a certainty of a greater variety and a chance for some remarkable forms. There is," declares he, "no other pleasure in gardening equal to that which comes from the growing of Gladiolus from seed." It is claimed for the Gladiolus that if cut for decorative use when the first flower on the stalk opens the spike will develop better in water than if left out in the open sun. ”

“ At about four o'clock in the afternoon Gilia dichotoma begins to whiten the hillside. Before expansion the flowers are hardly noticeable; the dull pink of the edges, which are not covered in the convolute corolla, hides their identity and makes the change which takes place when they unveil their radiant faces to the setting sun the more startling. They intend to watch all night and by sunset all are awake. In the morning they roll up their petals again when daylight comes on, and when the sun is well up all are asleep, tired out with the vigil of the night. ”

“ Rare or scarce gladiolus seeds, particularly those resulting from difficult crosses, should not be risked under ordinary garden or field conditions of growth. We naturally wish to bring to maturity every possible plant that the ideal we are breeding for may not be lost, if it should by chance be included in the number. If grown in pots or boxes the first season, with due care every good seed is likely to produce a vigorous bulb that may be planted out next year. ”

“ One is larger and more flat. But there is nothing in form nor size to show that they will not develop precisely the same form and color of flower. I know that they will all reveal the leaf, habit of growth, bud and bloom that distinguishes this species of plant from all others, because I know [55] that these are gladiolus bulbs, and every seed hath its own body. A gladiolus bulb never yet produced a dahlia. A tigridia or shell-flower bulb, though greatly resembling some gladiolus bulbs, and its form of leaf is very similar, yet it never produces a bud nor blossom like the gladiolus. ”

“ Late-blooming dahlias and asters made spots of starry color in the green. A vine, running over the door to the second story, waved like a crimson banner dropped from the window.
“The old lady must have been fond of flowers,” Billy Potter said. He squinted his near-sighted blue eyes and studied the bunches of green. “Syringa bush in one corner. Lilac bush in the other. Nasturtiums at the edges. Morning-glories running up the fence. Sunflowers in between. My, won’t it be fun to see them all racing up in the spring!”
Maida jumped up and down at the thought. She could not jump like other children. ”

“ The little seedling bulbs, ranging in size from a wheat grain to a hazelnut, keep best in dry sand and should be sown next season like peas in drills in the garden. Some of the strongest are likely to bloom the second year and all should produce flowers the third. If seeds are sown under glass soon after ripening, in early October, according to foregoing directions, the bulbs may usually be ripened off in March, cured in sand in a dry warm place and planted out in May, thus securing a few blooms the following Autumn, one year after gathering the seed. ”

“ Throwing on a cloak she walked out into the moonlit garden, and went slowly down the whitened road toward the station. A magical, dewless night! The moonbeams had stolen in to the beech clump, frosting the boles and boughs, casting a fine ghostly grey over the shadow-patterned beech-mast. Gyp took the short cut through it. Not a leaf moved in there, no living thing stirred; so might an earth be where only trees inhabited! ”

“ In the young plants of this genus the gills vary very much in color. They are whitish, clay-color, violet, dark purple, blood-red, etc., according to species, but, as the plants mature, the gills become dusted with the rust-colored falling spores, and with age usually become a rusty ochraceous, or cinnamon color. The stem in some of the species is distinctly bulbous and in others equal, cylindrical, or tapering. In identifying the species it is necessary, in order to ascertain the true color of the gills, to examine the plants at different periods of growth. ”

“ The general cultivation of Gladioli is very simple. They may be grown well in any good loam, enriched in autumn by a supply of properly rotted animal manure being dug in deeply. In the case of the pretty early-flowering Gladioli, which are often satisfactory when permanently planted, they are put into the ground in late autumn, and protected with a layer of two inches of dry litter or cocoa-nut fibre. The greater number of the species, like the exquisite hybrid Gladioli, may be planted in April or early May. ”

“ To turn from the fruit-garden to the flower-garden, modern writers have fallen into many similar mistakes as to the supposed recent date of the introduction of various plants into this country. Loudon, for instance, says that we owe the introduction of the gilliflower, or clove-pink (dianthus caryophyllus) , to the Flemings, who took refuge on our shores from the savage persecutions of the duke of Alva, in the latter half of the sixteenth century ”

“ The red Rose does not flower so freely here as on a pillar in sunlight, but its fewer stems clamber high into the Holly and the bloom shows in thin natural wreaths that are even more pleasing to an artist's eye than the more ordered abundance of the flowery post. At the foot of the Hollies hardy Ferns grow luxuriantly in the constant shade. A little later a few clumps of Lilies will spring up from among them; the lovely pink rubellum, the fine yellow szovitzianum, and the buff testaceum. ”

“ No pines grew on that side, where the soil was richer—of a ruddy brown. The second crops of clover were already high; in them humblebees were hard at work; and, above, the white-throated swallows dipped and soared. Gyp gathered a bunch of chicory flowers. She was close above the shore before she saw him standing in the rock archway, looking for her across the beach. After the hum of the bees and flies, it was very quiet here—only the faintest hiss of tiny waves. He had not yet heard her coming, and the thought flashed through her: 'If I take another step, it is for ever! ”

“ The hybrid Gladioli, as well as the species, make good pot plants which may be treated in a similar way to such bulbs as Hyacinths. Named varieties are propagated by offsets, by division of the corms, each portion having an eye attached, and by "spawn," the cormlets at the base of the corms which are grown on until they reach flowering size. Gladioli are also raised from seeds, sown in pans, or in the open ground in spring. ”

“ There are three principal kinds; the most esteemed is the yellow, or gold-coloured, which has a delicious scent both by night and day; the next, the purple, and other dark kinds, which have a scent only in the night; the least esteemed, the white, which has no scent. The yellow gilliflower is an emblem of a neglected lover. ”

“ It is courting failure to allow such plants as chrysanthemums, auriculas, geraniums, and many others, to be exposed to the influence of cold, frosty nights, as when the "fell destroyer" commences to exert its power all plants touched by it rapidly decay. Gladioli will now be clothed in the full glory of their gaudy, but handsome dress; they are comparatively easy to manage in well-drained spots, and being such continuous bloomers, at least three or four or even half a dozen should be in every small garden. In winter they must be covered by about six inches of litter ”

“ Those, and they are many, both Amateur and Commercial growers who exhibit blooms at Flower shows should remember that if spikes are cut when the lowest blooms begin to open and transported to the exhibition halls early and there, standing in vases allowed to open their blooms, will be much more perfect and free from that bruised condition shown by blooms which have not been cut until the flowers on the spikes were nearly open.
One reliable grower keeps his black hard-shelled bulblets in gunny sacks containing about one bushel mixed with about 20 per cent of fine dry earth. ”