114 UEVIEW or THE GENUS NARCISSUS. 



line of demarcation. This assertion was strongly criticized ; but veri- 

 fication being made on the spot with M. Delille, it was established that 

 the fact was beyond doubt." 



XVII. N. POETicus (L. Sp. Plant, p. 414). — Bulb ovoid, about an 

 inch in thickness. Leaves 3-4 to a scape, flat, with a blunt keel, 

 glaucescent, often a foot or more long in cultivation, f-^ in. broad. 

 Scape a foot or more high, compressed and two-edged in the typical 

 plant, producing near London one or very rarely two flowers in the 

 latter part of April. Pedicel generally much shorter than the spathe, 

 which is 1^2 in. long ; tube white, 12-14 lines long above the ovary, 

 and about a line in thickness; expanded flower 21-24 lines across 

 when expanded, with a distinct and agreeable odour, the divisions a 

 pure snow-white, obovate, blunt or cuspidate, slightly imbricated, 6-9, 

 or sometimes in cultivation even 12 lines broad; crown 1-1-g- line 

 deep, saucer-shaped, very much crisped, with a bright scarlet edge, the 

 mouth 4-4^ lines across ; anthers sessile, subuniseriate at the throat 

 of the tube.— Eng. Bot. t. 275 ; Red. Lil. t. 160 ; Reich. Tc. t. 808. 



Very common in cultivation, and extending as a wild plant all through 

 the south of Europe, from France to Greece. The principal varieties 

 are as follows : — 



Var. 1, radiiflorus. — A more slender plant than the type, with nar- 

 rower leaves, and obovate divisions of the limb of the flower so much 

 narrowed downwards that they are not at all imbricated in the expanded 

 flower, and also more narrowed at the point. Crown rather narrower, 

 and consequentiy more erect. Flowers at least a fortnight earlier than 

 the type, generally in the first week in April near London, or even the 

 last in March. — N. radiiflorns, Salisb. Prodr. p. 225 ; Reich. Ic. 

 t. 809. N. angustifoUus, Ait. Kew, edit. 2, vol. ii. p. 241, and figured 

 by Curtis in the ' Botanical Magazine,' under the name of N. maialis, 

 which is afterwards corrected to angustifoUus. A very handsome 

 plant, truly wild in the Alps of Central Europe, and admitted both by 

 Koch and Reichenbach as a distinct species. 



Var. 2, stellaris (N. stellar is, Haw. Mon. p. 15 ; Sweet, Brit. Flow. 

 Gard. ser. 2. t. 132). — A late-flowering form, with the divisions of the 

 limb, as in the last, narrowed at the base, and not imbricated. 



Var. 3, recurvus (N. recurvus. Haw. Mon. p. 15 ; Sweet, Brit. Flow. 

 Gard. ser. 2. t. 188). — A late-flowering form, with weak recurved 

 leaves, and the divisions of the limb reflexed and crisped towards the 

 edoje. 



