Garden History
Cornus mas, "Male" Cornel, was named so to distinguish it from the true Dogberry, the "Female" Cornel, C. sanguinea, and so it appears in John Gerard's Herbal. The shrub was not native to the British Isles. William Turner had only heard of the plant in 1548, but by 1551 he had heard of one at Hampton Court Palace. John Gerard said that it was to be found in the gardens "of such as love rare and dainty plants" and by the 17th century, the fruits were being pickled in brine or served up in tarts.
The appreciation of the early acid-yellow flowers is largely a 20th-century development. The Royal Horticultural Society gave Cornus mas an Award of Garden Merit in 1924. The cultivars 'Golden glory' and 'Variegata' have also gained the award.
Read more about this topic: Cornus Mas
Famous quotes containing the words garden and/or history:
“The city mouse lives in a house;—
The garden mouse lives in a bower,”
—Christina Georgina Rossetti (1830–1894)
“I am ashamed to see what a shallow village tale our so-called History is. How many times must we say Rome, and Paris, and Constantinople! What does Rome know of rat and lizard? What are Olympiads and Consulates to these neighboring systems of being? Nay, what food or experience or succor have they for the Esquimaux seal-hunter, or the Kanaka in his canoe, for the fisherman, the stevedore, the porter?”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)