"What's that—a Columbine?
No! that thankless flower grows not in my garden."
All Fools, by Chapman, 1605.
and again in the 15th Song of Drayton's "Polyolbion"—
"The Columbine amongst they sparingly do set."
Spenser gave it a better character. Among his "gardyn of sweet floures, that dainty odours from them threw around," he places—
"Her neck lyke to a bounch of Cullambynes."
And, still earlier, Skelton (1463-1529) spoke of it with high praise—
"She is the Vyolet,
The Daysy delectable,
The Columbine commendable,
The Ielofer amyable."—Phyllip Sparrow.
Both the English and the Latin names are descriptive of the plant. Columbine, or the Dove-plant, calls our attention to the "resemblance of its nectaries to the heads of pigeons in a ring round a dish, a favourite device of ancient artists" (Dr. Prior); or to "the figure of a hovering dove with expanded wings, which we obtain by pulling off a single petal with its attached sepals" (Lady Wilkinson); though it may also have had some reference to the colour, as the word is used by Chaucer—
"Come forth now with thin eyghen Columbine."