The English daisy is "The wee, modest crimson-tipped flower," as Burns has described it, and must not be confused with the daisy that powders the fields and meadows in our Southern States with a snow of white blossoms supported on tall stems. This daisy, called sometimes the moon-daisy (Chrysanthemum Leucanthemum), is known in England as the midsummer daisy and ox-eye. In France it is called marguerite and paquerette. Being a midsummer flower, it is dedicated to St. John the Baptist. It is also associated with St. Margaret and Mary Magdalen, and from the latter it derives the names of maudlin and maudelyne. As Ophelia drowned herself in midsummer the daisies that are described in her wreath are most probably marguerites and not the "day's eye" of Chaucer.
Parkinson does not separate daisies very particularly. "They are usually called in Latin," he tells us, "Bellides and in English Daisies. Some of them Herba Margarita and Primula veris, as is likely after the Italian names of Marguerita and Flor di prima vera gentile. The French call them Paquerettes and Marguerites; and the fruitful sort, or those that have small flowers about the middle one, Margueritons. Our English women call them Jack-an-Apes-on-Horseback."
The daisy that an Elizabethan poet quaintly describes as a Tudor princess resembles the midsummer daisy rather than the "wee, modest, crimson-tipped flower" of Burns:
About her neck she wears a rich wrought ruff
With double sets most brave and broad bespread
Resembling lovely lawn, or cambric stuff
Pinned up and prickt upon her yellow head.
Also Browne in his "Pastorals" seems to be thinking of this flower:
The Daisy scattered on each mead and down,
A golden tuft within a silver crown.
VIOLET (Viola odorata). The violet was considered "a choice flower of delight" in English gardens. Shakespeare speaks of the violet on many occasions and always with tenderness and deep appreciation of its qualities. Violets are among the flowers that the frightened Proserpine dropped from Pluto's ebon car—
Violets dim
And sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes,
Or Cytherea's breath.[38]
Thus in Shakespeare's opinion the violet out-sweetened both Juno, majestic queen of heaven, and Venus, goddess of love and beauty.
How could he praise the violet more?