Paradisi in sole paradisus terrestris, or, A garden of all sorts of pleasant flowers which our English ayre will permitt to be noursed vp / a kitchen garden of all manner of herbes, rootes & fruites for meate or sauce vsed with vs, and, an orchard of all sorte of fruitbearing trees and shrubbes fit for our land, together with the right orderinge, planting & preseruing of them and their vses & vertues

by John Parkinson

Iris Chalcedonica siue Susiana maior. The great Turkie Flowerdeluce.

The great Turkie Flowerdeluce, hath diuers heads of long and broad fresh greene leaues, yet not so broad as many other of those that follow, one folded within another at the bottome, as all other of these Flowerdeluces are: from the middle of some one of those heads (for euery head of leaues beareth not a flower) riseth vp a round stiffe stalke, two foote high, at the toppe whereof standeth one flower (for I neuer obserued it to beare two) the largest almost, but rarest of all the rest, consisting of nine leaues, like the others that follow, but of the colour almost of a Snakes skinne, it is so diuersly spotted; for the three lower falling leaues are very large, of a deepe or darke purple colour, almost blacke, full of grayish spots, strakes, and lines through the whole leaues, with a blacke thrume or freeze in the middle of each of them: the three arched leaues that couer them, are of the same darke purple colour, yet a little paler at the sides, the three vpper leaues are very large also, and of the same colour with the lower leaues, but a little more liuely and fresh, being speckled and straked with whiter spots and lines; which leaues being laid in water, will colour the water into a Violet colour, but if a little Allome be put therein, and then wrung or pressed, and the iuice of these leaues dryed in the shadow, will giue a colour almost as deepe as Indico, and may serue for shawdowes in limming excellent well: the flower hath no sent that can be perceiued, but is onely commendable for the beauty and rarity thereof: it seldome beareth seedes in these cold Countries, but when it doth, it is contained in great heads, being brownish and round, but not so flat as in other sorts, the roots are more browne on the outside, and growing tuberous thicke, as all other that are kept in Gardens.

Iris Chalcedonica siue Susiana minor. The lesser Turkie Flowerdeluce.

There is another hereof little differing, but that the leafe is of a more yellowish greene colour, and the flower neither so large or faire, nor of so perspicuous markes and spots, nor the colour of that liuely (though darke) lustre.

The Place.

These haue been sent out of Turkie diuers times among other things, and it should seeme, that they haue had their originall from about Susis, a chiefe Citie of Persia.

The Time.

They flower in May most vsually, before any of the other kindes.

The Names.

They haue been sent vnto vs, and vnto diuers other in other parts, from Constantinople vnder the name of Alaia Susiana, and thereupon it hath been called, both of them and vs, either Iris Chalcedonica, or Susiana, and for distinction maior or minor: In English, The Turkie Flowerdeluce, or the Ginnie Hen Flowerdeluce, the greater or the lesser.