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The literary genres of nawrīyāt and rauḍīyāt, the description respectively of flowers and gardens, figure amongst those most cultivated by Hispano-Arab poets, and it would be superfluous to identify all the poets who found in a garden the most congenial source of their inspiration. One case must suffice: that of Ibn Khafāja, styled al-jannān ‘the gardener’ on account of the predilection he showed for this genre. Just as the full understanding of Graeco Raman poetry is impossible unless the reader know what such plants as laurel, ivy, and myrtle signifed to the ancients, the study of Arab gardening is important in superlative degree for the correct interpretation of Arabic poetry. But this is not the only point of contact between gardening and literature: for, by strange coincidence, the normalk critical procedure used in analysing a work of literature, namely to consider it under its dual aspect of form and content, is equally aplicable to garden design and we purpose here first to discover the plan or form of the Hispano-Arab garden and then examine its content or flora.

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