[E242] "Flower armor," evidently the Floramor, Fr. fleur d'amour, from a misconception of its Latin name Amaranthus, as though a compound of Amor, love, and anthus, a flower.
[E243] "Flower de luce," the flos deliciarum of the Middle Ages. Ducange, quoting from the history of the Harcourts, says:—"Thomas, Dux Exoniæ habet comitatum de Harcourt ... per homagium ac reddendum florem deliciarum apud Castrum de Rouen," etc. (A.D. 1423). Another derivation is as follows:—"Louis VII. dit le Jeune, prit le premier des fleurs de lis, par allusion à son nom de Loys (comme on l'écrivait alors). On a dit dans ce temps-là Fleur de Loys, puis Fleur de Louis, enfin, Fleur de Lis." (Grandmaison, Dict. Heraldique.) The flower that he chose seems to have been a white one, for Chaucer says:
"His nekke was white as is the flour de lis."
In E. K.'s Glossary to Spenser's Shep. Cal. April, we read "Flower delice, that which they use to misterme Flowre deluce being in the Latine called Flos delitiarum."
[E244] According to Lyte the Flower Gentle is identical with the Floramor (see above). Various species of Amaranthus, including the Flower amor (43. 10), and what we now call Celosia cristata, or Cockscomb, were included under this name. Parkinson (Paradisus, p. 370) says: "We have foure or five sorts of Flower-gentle to trimme up this our Garden withall."—Note by Mr. J. Britten, F.L.S.
[E245] "Gilliflower, formerly spelt gyllofer and gilofre with the o long, from Fr. giroflée, ltal. garofalo, in Douglas's Virgil jereflouris, words formed from M. Lat. garoffolum, gariofilum, or, as in Albert Magn. (lib. vi. cap. 22), gariofilus, corrupted from Lat. caryophyllum = a clove, and referring to the spicy odour of the flower, which seems to have been used in flavouring wines to replace the more costly clove of India. The name was originally given in India to plants of the Pink tribe, especially the carnation, but has in England been transferred of late years to several Cruciferous plants. That of Chaucer, Spenser, and Shakspere was, as in Italy, Dianthus caryophyllus, Linn., that of later writers and gardeners Matthiola and Cheiranthus, Linn. Much of the confusion in the names of plants has arisen from the vague use of the French terms Giroflée, Oeillet, and Violette, which were, all three of them, applied to flowers of the Pink tribe, but subsequently extended, and finally restricted in English to very different plants. Giroflée has become Gilliflower, and passed over to the Cruciferæ, Oeillet has been restricted to the Sweet Williams, and Violette has been appropriated to one of the numerous claimants of its name, the genus to which the pansy belongs."—Dr. R. A. Prior.
[E246] "Holiokes," in Huloet's Dict. Holy Hoke. Wedgwood (Etym. Dict.) derives it from A.S. hoc, Welsh hocys = a mallow, and says that it obtained the title of Holy from its being brought from the Holy Land, where it is indigenous.
[E247] "Indian Eie." This was probably a Dianthus of some kind (French œillet), the same perhaps which is now grown in our gardens as Indian or Chinese Pink.
[E248] Laus tibi, "a narcissus with white flowers. It groweth plenteously in my Lorde's garden in Syon and it is called of divers White Laus tibi."—Turner's Herball, pt. ii. b. 2. "It is very difficult to ascertain what plant was meant by this name, which is also mentioned by Turner in his 'Names of Herbes' (1548), and in his 'Libellus' (1538), where there is a long disquisition concerning it. It may be Narcissus poeticus, L., as Mr. B. D. Jackson supposes in his reprint of the 'Libellus' or possibly N. biflorus, L."—Note by Mr. J. Britten, F.L.S.