William Morris flowers

Today I visited our city market for some Christmas goodies. Our 'Adelaide Central Market' has been going for 140 years and it is a wonderful place of visual delight and full of the most amazing aromas. Their website is worth a look;
http://www.adelaidecentralmarket.com.au/
Fresh flowers are abundant and I bought myself a rare treat - a bunch of peonies.

I have never seen them grown in my home state - this bunch comes from Tasmania where I am sure the climate is better than home. Peonies feature in many Morris designs including Cray:

I've appliqued peonies in a wall hanging which is a project in my new book. This is the original embroidery and then below is my wall hanging version:

 Above Photo "Portiere" is courtesy of the Art Gallery of South Australia;

http://www.artgallery.sa.gov.au/agsa/home

I know little of peonies but our ABC television garden show has a wonderful fact sheet: http://www.abc.net.au/gardening/stories/s933726.htm
I have recently received another wonderful 'William Morris' plant. This is a rare specimen given to me by my friend Valerie last week- it is 'Fritillaria'. Valerie took a photo of it flowering but of course now it is dormant. Her photo was carefully displayed with Jane and William in the background!

 I have found the most common Fritillaria meleagris is known as 'Snakeshead' as seen below:

The above photo is courtesy of wikimedia;

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Fritillaria-meleagris-blomst.JPG

And below is William Morris' design of the same name. The mystery is unravelling and I always wondered why this design had such an odd name - I can now see those flowers! Thankyou Valerie.

Snakeshead 1876

So I am looking forward to next winter when my bulb hopefully produces flowers. For now I will get great pleasure watching the peonies open.