Brief History of Exotic Flowers

The greater number of our exotic flowers and fruits were carefully transported into this country by many of our travelled nobility and gentry; some names have been casually preserved. The learned Linacre first brought, on his return from Italy , the damask-rose; and Thomas Lord Cromwell, in the reign of Henry VIII., enriched our fruit-gardens with three different plums. In the reign of Elizabeth , Edward Grindal, afterwards archbishop of Canterbury , returning from exile, transported here the medicinal plant of the tamarisk: the first oranges appear to have been brought into England by one of the Carew family; for a century after, they still flourished at the family seat at Beddington, in Surrey . The cherry orchards of Kent were first planted about Sittingbourne, by a gardener of Henry VIII.; and the currant-bush was transplanted when our commerce with the island of Zante was first opened in the same reign. The elder Tradescant in 1620 entered himself on board of a privateer, armed against Morocco , solely with a view of finding an opportunity of stealing apricots into Britain : and it appears that he succeeded in his design.

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