The Description.
1 The Checquered Daffodill, or Ginny-hen Floure, hath small narrow grassie leaves; among which there riseth up a stalke three hands high, having at the top one or two floures, and sometimes three, which consisteth of six small leaves checquered most strangely: wherein Nature, or rather the Creator of all things, hath kept a very wonderfull order, surpassing (as in all other things) the curiousest painting that Art can set downe. One square is of a greenish yellow colour, the other purple, keeping the same order as well on the backside of the floure as on the inside, although they are blackish in one square, and of a Violet colour in an other; insomuch that every leafe seemeth to be the feather of a Ginny hen, whereof it tooke his name. The root is small, white, and of the bignesse of halfe a garden beane.
2 The second kinde of Checquered Daffodill is like unto the former in each respect, saving that this hath his floure dasht over with a light purple, and is somewhat greater than the other, wherein consisteth the difference.
The Names.
The Ginny hen floure is called of Dodonoaeus, Flos Meleagris: of Lobelius, Lilio-narcissus variegata, for that it hath the floure of a Lilly, and the root of Narcissus: it hath beene called Fritillaria, of the table or boord upon which men play at Chesse, which square checkers the floure doth very much resemble; some thinking that it was named Fritillus: whereof there is no certainty; for Martial seemeth to call Fritillus, Abacus, or the Tables whereon men play at Dice, in the fifth booke of his Epigrams, writing to Galla.
The sad Boy now his nuts cast by,
Is call'd to Schoole by Masters cry:
And the drunke Dicer now betray'd
By flattering Tables as he play'd,
Is from his secret tipling house drawne out,
Although the Officer he much besought, & c.
In English we may call it Turky-hen or Ginny-hen Floure, and also Checquered Daffodill, and Fritillarie, according to the Latine.
The Temperature and Vertues.
Of the facultie of these pleasant floures there is nothing set downe in the antient or later Writer, but are greatly esteemed for the beautifying of our gardens, and the bosoms of the beautifull.