190 ENGLISH BOTANY. 
SPECIES I—TULIPA SYLVESTRIS. Lim. 
Pirate MDXX, 
Reich. Ic. Fl. Germ. et Helv. Vol. X. Tab. CCCCXLVI. 
Billot, F. Gall. et Germ. Exsice. No. 1550. 
Bulb producing a single new bulb and no offsets within its coats, 
but throwing out a stolon, at the extremity of which an offset bulb 
is formed ; coats brown, not woolly inside. Leaves slightly glan- 
cous, strapshaped-elliptical, or the upper ones strapshaped, gradually 
attenuated into an acute point. Flowers 1 (rarely 2 or 3), yellow, 
drooping in bud. Outer perianth leaves elliptical-oval, shortly acu- 
minate or subcuspidate; inner ones elliptical, gradually acuminate. 
Stigma minute. Capsule broadly fusiform-prismatic, trigonous, acu- 
minated at each end. 
In woods, orchards, old chalk-pits and quarries, and in meadows 
and pastures. Widely distributed, but doubtfully native in England. 
Not native in Scotland, but naturalised here and there throughout 
the country as far north as Brechin, Forfarshire. 
England, [Scotland]. Perennial. Late Spring, early Summer. 
Bulb flowering when about the size of a filbert, and rarely attaining 
the size of a dried date, remarkable for not forming its offsets within 
the coats of the bulb, but at the end of a long stolon, a mode of 
increase which I do not know to occur in any ‘other species of the 
genus.* Stem 1 to 2 feet high, slightly flexuous, bare of leaves in 
the upper half. Leaves 2 or 3, the longest 4 to 8 inches long, widely 
channelled, glaucous. Perianth leaves 1} to 2 inches long, bright 
yellow. Anthers about 3 1 inch long, yellow, their filaments woolly at 
the base. Capsule about 1 inch long, with three ovate sides, acumi- 
nated at each end. Seeds light brown, about 4 inch across. 
The flowers are rarely produced in Britain, at least in many loca- 
lities; but in gardens it flowers freely. 
Wild Tulip. 
French, Tulipe sauvage. German, Wald-Tulpe. 
This species of Tulip, though wild, is much admired in gardens for its delicate 
perfume, and when doubls by cultivation is highly prized. The mania for expensive 
varieties of Tulips was at one time very remarkable, and gave rise to enormous specula- 
tions. These expensive bulbs are chiefly derived from T. Gesneriana of the Levant, and 
are prized to an extravagant degree in Holland. This taste extends to the East ; and a 
Tulip feast is held annually in the Seraglio. Chardin’s account of the symbolic 
meaning of a Tulip in Persia is rather ridiculous. He says that when a young man 
* M. Grenier has transposed this character in his rapa ice of Tulipa sylvestris 
and T, Celsiana. 
