98 FLORA HISTORICA. 



species of Narcissus Slntey seen fa, and it is used 

 by them for religious purposes at the new year. 

 The bulbs are sent every year from Chinchew, 

 being only kept at Canton during the time of their 

 flowering. They are planted in pots made to re- 

 tain water, filled with sand or small stones. 



It is one of the most valuable of our flowering 

 bulbs, both on account of the early season in which 

 it blossoms, and the numerous flowers which it 

 gives out from one stalk, as well as for its agree- 

 able odour ; on this account, the florists in Hol- 

 land, Flanders, and France, have taken great pains 

 in improving it by cultivation, and raising nume- 

 rous varieties of it from seed : their catalogues 

 contain upwards of a hundred sub-varieties, distin- 

 guished by similar pompous and ridiculous names 

 to those which the English florists now bestow on 

 their Geraniums. The double-flowered Polyanthos 

 Narcissus has been cultivated in our gardens as 

 long back as the time of Queen Elizabeth, as Ge- 

 rard tells us it was sent from Constantinople Ci to 

 the Right Honourable the Lord Treasurer, among 

 other bulbed flowers." We learn from the same 

 author, that his Lordship's house was situated in 

 the Strand, with a garden running down to the 

 Thames, on whose banks a greater variety of plants 

 have been naturalized from that time to the present 

 day than ever graced the shores of any other ma- 

 jestic stream, for there — 



