ADONIS. 221 



That this flower owes its name to the favourite 

 of Venus is not to be disputed, but whether the 

 goddess of beauty changed her lover into this 

 plant or the Anemone would be difficult to decide, 

 since the Linnean system of dividing plants into 

 families did not exist when the gods and god- 

 desses made love upon earth, and previous to 

 the time of the Swedish botanist the Adonis was 

 considered to be one of the Anemonies, which it 

 greatly resembles. 



The Pheasant's-eye, Adonis autumnalisy is evi- 

 dently a native flower of our corn-fields, since 

 Gerard observes, as long back as 1596, that 

 '* the red flower of Adonis groweth wilde in the 

 west parts of Englande, among their corne, euen 

 as Maie-weede doth in other parts, and is like- 

 wise an enimie to corne as Maie-weed is, from 

 thence I brought the seede, and haue sowen it 

 in my garden for the beautie of the flowers sake.'* 

 Both Ray and Martyn seem to have overlooked 

 this account, as they say it is a native of most 

 of the southern parts of Europe. Though now 

 common in corn-fields with us near London, yet 

 not being mentioned as indigenous by any of our 

 old writers, it is probably of no very long stand- 

 ing, and was originally conveyed from gardens 

 by the intervention of the dung-heap. 



" It grows in Kent, particularly by the side of 



