FLORA HISTORICA. 



They neither toil nor spin, but careless grow. 

 Yet sec how warm they blush ! how brig-ht they glow ! 

 What regal vestments can with them compare ! 

 What king so shining, or what queen so fair.'* 



Thomson. 



The common White Lily, LiUum Candidiim, is 

 undisputedly a native of the ^oly Land ; and 

 that a flower of such magnificence of deportment 

 and sweetness of odour should have early at- 

 tracted the notice of the Greek and Roman natu- 

 ralists 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 propagation of this bulb in those coun- 

 tries soon increase its numbers almost equal to 

 the native plants of those delightful climates. 



The heathen nations held this flower in so high 

 a regard 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 mortals 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, 

 prevailed on Juno to take a deep draught of nee- 



