4 FLORA HISTORICA. 



The common White Lily, Lilium Candidum, is 

 undisputedly a native of the Holy Land ; and that 

 a flower of such magnificence of deportment and 

 sweetness of odour should have early attracted the 

 notice of the Greek and Roman naturalists arises 

 from a natural cause, since we find them as anxious 

 to make additions to the plants of their country as 

 the botanist of modern days. The easy propaga- 

 tion of this bulb in those countries soon increased its 

 numbers almost equal to the native plants of those 

 delightful climates. 



The heathen nations held this flower in such high 

 recfard as to consecrate it to Juno, from whose milk 

 their fable pretends that it originally sprang. And 

 in order that this celebrated flower should lose none 

 of its celestial dignity in the dim eyes of the mor- 

 tals of our age, who cannot see through the clouds 

 that now obscure Mount Olympus, we shall relate 

 the secret cause from which the Lily blessed the 

 earth. 



Jupiter, wishing to render Hercules immortal, 

 that he might rank him amongst the divinities, pre- 

 vailed on Juno to take a deep draught of nectar, 

 prepared, as we presume, by Somnus, as it is related 

 that the Queen of the Gods fell immediately into a 

 profound slumber, and that Jupiter then placed the 

 infant Hercules to her breast, in order that the 

 divine milk miojht enter his frame, and so cause his 



