Chap. 11.] THE LILT. 315 



Blended, too, with roses, the lily 78 produces a remarkably fine 

 effect ; for it begins to make its appearance, in fact, just as the 

 rose is in the very middle of its season. There is no flower 

 that grows to a greater height than the lily, sometimes, in- 

 deed, as much as three cuhits ; the head of it heing always 

 drooping, as though the neck of the flower were unable to 

 support its weight. The whiteness of the lily is quite remark- 

 able, the petals being striated on the exterior ; the flower is 

 narrow at the base, and gradually expanding in shape like a 

 tapering 79 cup with the edges curving outwards, the fine pistils 

 of the flower, and the stamens with their anthera of a saffron 

 colour, standing erect in the middle. 80 Hence the perfume of 

 the lily, as well as its colour, is two-fold, there being one for 

 the petals and another for the stamens. The difference, how- 

 ever, between them is but very small, and when the flower is 

 employed for making lily unguents and oils, the petals are 

 never rejected. 



There is a flower, not unlike the lily, produced by the plant 

 known to us as the " convolvulus." 81 It grows among sbrubs, 

 is totally destitute of smell, and has not the yellow antherse of 

 the lily within : only vying with it in its whiteness, it would 

 almost appear to be the rough sketch 82 made by Nature when 

 she was learning how to make the lily. The white lily is 

 propagated in all the various ways which are employed for the 

 cultivation of the rose, 83 as also by means of a certain tearlike 



78 The Lilium candidum of Linnaeus. Fee remarks that the " Lilium" 

 of the Romans and the Xtipiov of the Greeks is evidently derived from 

 the laleh of the Persians. 



79 *' Calathi." The "calathus" was a work-basket of tapering shape ; 

 it was also used for carrying fruits and flowers, Ovid, Art. Am. ii. 264. 

 Cups, too, for wine were called by this name, Virg. Eel. v. 71. 



80 As this passage has been somewhat amplified in the translation, it 

 will perhaps be as well to insert it : " Resupinis per amhitum labris, te- 

 nuique pilo et staminum stantihus in medio crocis." 



81 The Convolvulus srepium of modern hotany ; the only resemblance 

 in which to the lily is in the colour, it being totally different in every other 

 respect. 



8 - " Rudimentum." She must have set to work in a very roundabout 

 way, Fee thinks, and one in which it would be quite impossible for a na- 

 turalist to follow her. 



83 The white lily is reproduced from the offsets of the bulbs ; and, ns 

 Fee justly remarks, it is highly absurd to compare the mode of culti- 

 vation with that of the rose, which is propagated from slips. 



