70 AMARYLLIS ATAMASCO. ATAMASCO LILY. 



Toonau by the Creek Indians, who use its bulbous roots as an 

 article of food in time of scarcity." 



The genus Amaryllis, with which our plant Avas classed when 

 its connections witn Lilium were severed, was founded by 

 Linnaeus in the year 1737; but so far as the name is regarded, 

 it is as difficult in this case as it is in so many other cases to say 

 precisely why it was chosen. Amaryllis is a Greek female name, 

 derived from words signifying "splendor." Theocritus, the cele- 

 brated Greek bucolic poet, who was born about 300 B. C., gives 

 the name to one of his shepherdesses; and the Roman poet Virgil, 

 who was born in the year 70 B. C, makes a similar use of it. 

 He sings of his return from the city to his country home as of 

 a return to his first love, and personifies the former as a lady 

 named Galatea, who had hitherto bound him fast by her unsatis- 

 factory charms, while the home of his youth is introduced as a 

 beautiful country girl, a shepherdess, — "my Amaryllis." The 

 shepherdess, however, was not so easily won back. She tol- 

 erated no divided allegiance, as we may conclude from the 

 following lines translated from Virgil: — 



" Nor did my search for liberty begin 

 Till my black hairs were changed upon my chin ; 

 Nor Amaryllis would vouchsafe a look 

 Till Galatea's meaner bonds I broke." 



That she was justified in this will be admitted by every right- 

 minded person, and it is therefore quite incomprehensible to find 

 writers on emblematic poetry (and lady writers at that, as for 

 instance Mrs. Waterman) endeavoring to associate our flower 

 with "haughtiness" or "pride," In consequence of the behavior 

 of Amaryllis, as related by Virgil. But, however all this may 

 be, and however interesting it may be, it does not help us to a 

 comprehension of the appropriateness of the name as applied to 

 our flower. We shall therefore do well, perhaps, to follow Dr. 

 Gray's lead, and to rest contented with the knowledge that it is 

 "a poetical name." 



