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Walthain may be induced to assist me in again bringing it to light. 

 Its usual place of growth, amongst thick brushwood, often veils it 

 from the passer-by even when in flower. Whether the Martagon Lily 

 is really indigenous in Durley Wood, or simply naturalized, I cannot 

 pretend to say, but in most parts of that wood, were I to meet with 

 the lily in any quantity, I should judge it a natural locality, disposed, 

 as I am, to contend for its claim to be held a true native of the east 

 and south-east of England. In support of this view, I take the pre- 

 cise line of argument employed in the case of Daphne Mezereum, and 

 therefore need not recapitulate all that has been said by me on that 

 and other disputed species. I look on the claims of the Mezereon and 

 Martagon to be as nearly the same as can be ; the sole objection that 

 I have to urge against the admission of both into the list of acknow- 

 ledged natives, being the failure of each of these plants towards the 

 coast countries of the west of Europe and in the meridians of the Bri- 

 tish Isles. Otherwise their distribution accords here with their dis- 

 persion on the continent, for both inhabit the same parts of central 

 Europe from the western confines of Germany across the entire con- 

 tinent into Siberia. Towards the south, Lilium Martagon is an inha- 

 bitant, like most of the genus, of subalpine woods, but descends into 

 the plains or to low elevations in the middle parts of Europe and 

 Asia, growing in copses and bushy places precisely as with us. It 

 seems to be absent from Belgium proper and from the north-west of 

 France, but is indicated by Von Hall (Fl. Belg. Sept.) as found in the 

 wood of the Hague, and possibly spontaneous there. Fries (Corp. 

 Fl. Prov. Suec. Scan. p. 169) gives it as abounding in pratal thickets 

 (dumetis pratensibus) at the foot of hills in one or two places in Sca- 

 nia, and remarks that in Germany it is truly indigenous wherever there 

 are primitive mountains, nor will he deny the possibility of its being 

 native to Sweden also. L. Martagon is indeed the most common and 

 widely diffused species of the genus in Europe, and if not strictly (as, 

 however, I am inclined to believe) an aboriginal Briton, it is yet so 

 thoroughly naturalized, and its stations are now so numerous, that it 

 is deserving of better treatment than to be put upon the alien list, and, 

 as if a casual stray from the garden merely, deprived of its rank of 

 denizen and privilege of comital representation in the ' Cybele Britan- 

 nica.' This species of lily has been in cultivation universally since 

 the year 1596, and in all probability long before that time. Sup- 

 posing it to be merely naturalized with us, it is highly improbable 

 that it should have become so only at a later day, and hence it must 

 have existed, as at present, in many of our woods without being 

 Vol. hi. 6 i 



