My epithet
will rightly associate it with the Burgundian hills round Cluny and
Citeaux. Its ground leaves are much larger than those of the Depressa; the
flower a little larger, but very pale.
(V.) Giulietta Austriaca. Pink, and very lovely, with bold cluster of
ground leaves, but itself minute--almost dwarf. Called 'small bitter
milkwort' by S. How far distinct from the next following one, Norwegian, is
not told.
The above five kinds are given by Sowerby as British, but I have never
found the Austriaca myself.
(VI.) Giulietta Amara. Norwegian. Very quaint in blossom outline, like a
little blue rabbit with long ears. D. 1169.
17. Nobody tells me why either this last or No. 5 have been called bitter;
and Gerarde's five kinds are distinguished only by colour--blue, red,
white, purple, and "the dark, of an overworn ill-favoured colour, which
maketh it to differ from all others of his kind." I find no account of this
ill-favoured one elsewhere. The white is my Soror Reginae; the red must be
the Austriaca; but the purple and overworn ones are perhaps now overworn
indeed. All of them must have been more common in Gerarde's time than now,
for he goes on to say "Milk-woort is called _Ambarualis flos_. so called
because it doth specially flourish in the Crosse or Gang-weeke, or
Rogation-weeke, of which flowers, the maidens which use in the countries to
walk the procession do make themselves garlands and nosegaies, in English
we may call it Crosse flower, Gang flower, Rogation flower, and
Milk-woort.
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