LILIACE. 189 
Somerset, Dorset, Wilts, Sussex, Surrey, Berks, Oxford, Bucks, 
Middlesex, Herts, Suffolk, Norfolk, Gloucester, Leicester, Stafford, 
Salop. - 
England. Perennial. Early Summer. 
Bulb flowering when about the size of a large black currant, con- 
sisting of 2 very thick scales, which after flowering enclose 2 minute 
ones which form the bulb for the succeeding year, the old scales perish- 
ing inautumn. Stem when barren 3 to 6 inches high: when flowering 
9 inches to 1 foot, and in fruit 1 foot to 18 inches high. Leaves few, 
the longest 3 to 6 inches, slightly channelled. Flower-buds tapering. 
Flower about 1} inch long, and nearly as wide across the mouth, 
strongly tesselated with purple or purplish-maroon on a pale ground, 
sometimes cream-white with obscure tesselation or without any mark- 
ing. Anthers yellow. eee about 3 inch long, and nearly as broad, 
very bluntly 3- ‘lobed. Seeds fawn- -colour, flat, semicircular, with the 
margin about half as broad as the least diameter of the solid part. 
Common Lritillary. 
French, Fritillaire méléagre. German, Gemeine Schachblume. 
This pretty plant is not very common, but so peculiar and attractive, that when once 
seen it is seldom forgotten. In some districts it covers acres of ground, and is com- 
monly known as the Snake’s-head Lily. In some localities it is called the ‘‘ Toad’s- 
head.” The Christchurch meadows at Oxford are covered with its pretty flowers 
early in the year; and we fancy these chequered bells must be associated in the 
mind of many a student with his happy undergraduate days in this famous seat of 
learning. 
GENUS IX—TULIPA. Tournef. 
Perianth coloured, bellshaped or bellshaped-funnelshaped; perianth 
leaves 6, free, caducous, ascending or more or less recurved towards 
the apex, destitute of a nectariferous pore, not papillose within. 
Stamens 6, scarcely adhering to the perianth leaves; anthers inserted 
by their base upon the filaments. Style absent; stigma short, deeply 
3-lobed, the lobes often waved. Capsule fusiform-prismatic, trigonous, 
attenuated at each end, or more so at the base than at the apex. 
Seeds numerous, in two rows in each cell, horizontal, discoid, flat on 
both sides, very faintly margined; testa rather soft, yellowish-brown 
or reddish-brown. 
Herbs with coated bulbs of a few fleshy convolute scales, and leafy 
stems with semiamplexicaul or sessile leaves. Flower large, com- 
monly solitary, erect when expanded, but sometimes drooping in bud. 
The name of this genus comes from the word tulipan, a turban, in allusion to the 
form of the blossom. 
