SOME OLD FAVOURITES AND NEW 79 



reason of this may be that they are none of them 

 native to Western Europe, though they have been 

 long grown and much improved there ; their 

 original home is South Europe and Western Asia, 

 from whence it is thought they spread at some 

 almost prehistoric time to Northern India, China, 

 and Japan. One rather insignificant species has 

 of recent years been introduced to Europe from 

 Japan, and for the moment made a sensation 

 among amateurs out of all proportion to its merits. 

 There is a small kind very plentiful in Greece 

 to-day; from its plentifulness some folk have 

 decided it was the original flower of the Greek 

 legend, but the consensus of opinion is in favour of 

 a single-flowered one of the Poeticus family also 

 still to be found in abundance in Greece. Ovid's 

 description certainly best fits the latter, as will be 

 seen from the following translation of his account 

 of the flower and the metamorphosis of the boy. 

 He was but sixteen, according to Ovid, so his flight 

 from the overtures of Echo and his subsequent 

 astonishment at and passion for his own newly- 

 discovered beauty are perhaps forgivable; at all 

 events more forgivable than the admiration of 

 many a subsequent poet Narcissus for himself and 

 all his works. 



