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Of White Lillies
The Kindes.
THere be sundry sorts of Lillies, whereof some be wilde or of the field, others tame or of the garden; some white, others red; some of our own countries growing, others from beyond the seas: and because of the variable sorts, we wil divide them into chapters, beginning with the two white Lillies, which differ little but in the native place of growing. The Description. 1 THe white Lilly hath long smooth and full bodied leaves of a grassie or light green colour. The stalks be two cubits high, and somtimes more, set or garnished with the like leaves, but growing smaller and smaller toward the top; and upon them do grow faire white floures strong of smell, narrow toward the foot of the stalke whereon they do grow, wide or open in the mouth like a bell. In the middle part of them doe grow small tender pointals tipped with a dusty yellow colour, ribbed or chamfered on the back side, consisting of six small leaves thicke and fat. The root is a bulb made of scaly cloves, full of tough and clammy juice, wherewith the whole plant doth generally abound. 2 The white Lilly of Constantinople hath very large & fat leaves like the former, but narrower and lesser. The stalke riseth up to the height of three cubits, set and garnished with leaves also like the precedent, but much lesse. Which stalke oftentimes doth alter and degenerat from his naturall roundnesse to a flat forme, as it were a lath of wood furrowed or chanelled alongst the same, as it were ribs or welts. The floures grow at the top like the former, saving that the leaves doe turne themselves more backward like the Turks cap, and beareth many more floures than our English white Lilly doth. The Place.
Our English white Lilly groweth in most gardens of England. The other groweth naturally in Constantinople and the parts adjacent, from whence we had plants for our English gardens, where they flourish as in their owne countrey. The Time.
The Lillies floure from May to the end of June.
The Names.
The Lilly is called in Latine, Rosa Junonis, or Juno's Rose, because as it is reported it came up of her milke that fell upon the ground. But the Poets feign, That Hercules, who Jupiter had by Alcumena, was put to Juno's breasts whilest shee was asleepe; and after the sucking there fell away aboundance of milk, and that one part was spilt in the heavens, and the other upon the earth; and that of this sprang the Lilly, and of the other the circle in the heavens called Lacteus Circulus, or the Milky way, or otherwise in English Watling street. S. Basil in the explication of the 44 Psalm saith, That no floure so lively sets forth the frailty of mans life as the Lilly. The other is called Lilium album Byzantinum: in English, the white Lilly of Constantinople.
The Vertues.
The root of the garden Lilly stamped with hony gleweth together sinues that be cut in sunder.
Florentinus a writer of Husbandry saith, That if the root be curiously opened, and therein be put some red, blew, or yellow colour that hath no causticke or burning qualitie, it will cause the floure to be of the same colour.