SWEET LAVENDER.

Hutt News, Volume 2, Issue 41, 20 March 1930, Page 9

SWEET LAVENDER.

Perdita includes the Lavender with other "flowers of middle summeT," as one of the flowers of the Elizabethan garden, and sweet Lavender is called by Spenser the "lavender still gray," but though cultivated in this country about 1568, it is omitted by Bacon in •his catalogue of sweet-smelling flowers. This is strange, for what is sweet Lavender but a symbol of fragrance, and we arc therefore not surprised to kno^r it found its way to Amwica with the Pilgrim Fathers, along with the Boseinary. "Won't you buy my sweet Lavender" is still; as in the past, on© of the most frequent /rcries of Loadon." ;.;■■..

Its fragrance is due to a volatile oil -which contains two esters Tinalyl actetate and linalyl.Tbutyrate. So early in its period of cultivation here as t2ie Teignlof"James I ;/ParkinSon, who was his physician, wrote of its uses for •the linen press.

"Lavender is almost wholly spent with us, for to perfume linen, apparel, gloves and leather, arid the dried flowers to comfort and dry up the moisture of a cold brain."

Tie Greeks called,it STardus, from a city known as Naarda, in Syria, near the'B. Euphrates. It was known, to St. Mark, as Spikenard. Pliny shows how valued it was in his day of t&e Eomans, who paid 100 denarii (£3/2/6) a pound for its blooms. They probablyused the French Lavender as a perfume for the bath, and this usage is the basis of the scientific name Lavandula (lavo-wash). The oil is used to perfume soap and to scent eau-de-Cologne. A refreshing "Toilet soap preparation is made from six parts rosewater, one part spirits of lavender, two parts Orleans vinegar.