The
Rose Campion (or Agrostemma coronaria) - distinguished
by its hoary leafage, its forked style of growth, the
arrangement of its leaves in pairs and its single solitary
flower - was a common sight in Victorian gardens.
Hibberd
adored the flower. He told the story of once visiting
a manufacturing millionaire's gardens. This man had
almost four acres of glass houses, had everything from
begonias to bananas growing,
but the most prized possession of both the owner and
his gardeners was a clump of rose campion near the foot
of a tree.
In
Victorian times there were three forms of the rose campion
in cultivation. The single red (left), the single white
and the double red. The two singles were plentiful even
in Elizabethan times when it was also known as the rose
of Mary or the rose of Heaven.
