Hot July brings cooling showers, Apricots and gillyflowers – or a similar plant of the genus Dianthus, especially the Clove Pink Dianthus caryophyllus.
It was frequently used in medieval tenure documents as a means of payment of a peppercorn rent for land. For example in 1262 in Bedfordshire an area of land called The Hyde was owned by someone “for the rent of one clove of gilliflower” (ex Wikipedia)
