AND THEIE CULTURE. 119 



favourites with flower lovers from time . immemorial, should bo so 

 very scanty. Amidst the enormous mass of our own horticultural 

 literature, there is nothing of the kind which I mean; and now, 

 Spae's monograph is more than 20 years old, and difficult or impossible 

 tcT procure. As I have a few ideas of my own about the best 

 arrangement of Lilies, I will, if you will allow me, attempt to 

 work out a Synopsis fit for every-day working purposes, upon the 

 same plan that I followed for Narcissus. At present, for want of 

 such a Synopsis, any one trying to name a Lily has usually to lose a 

 great deal of time in hunting about in different books and journals, 

 and from the botanical point of view we particularly need a careful 

 comparison of the numerous Lilies which have been described and 

 figured since Spae's time in the various horticultural periodicals with 

 the older-known types, and many of these older-known types with 

 one another, in order to understand which of them are really worth 

 taking into account as well marked species ; and, far more than is 

 the case in Narcissus, a great deal still remains to be done in working 

 out and explaining which are the characters that are most safely to 

 be relied upon to distinguish the well-marked species from one 

 another. I want to try in this paper to place the acknowledged 

 species of Liliurn upon the same footing as regards comprehensiveness 

 as those which are adopted in our approved handbooks for ordinary 

 use for wild plants, such as Hooker's " Students' Flora," or Syme's 

 " English Botany." I am convinced that it is only by doing this 

 that a Synopsis fit for working purposes can be constructed, and 

 that by following this plan, the natural relationship of the forms can 

 be most fully and clearly shown ; and if in attempting to do this I 

 overlook or misunderstand any characters which are valuable for 

 distinctive purposes, I hope that your horticultural readers will not 

 fail to correct what I have mistaken, or to add what I have omitted. 

 This is a genus in which there is an especial need, in order to put it 

 upon a sound botanical footing, for botanists and horticulturists to 

 work together. 



GENERIC CHARACTERS. 



Plants of the temperate zone of both the New and the Old World, 

 with scaly bulbs, numerous leaves, either scattered or in whorls, and 

 with handsome summer-blooming flowers produced in racemes or 

 solitary. Perianth, corolla-like, deciduous, in six divisions, funnel- 

 shaped, with equal ob-lanceolate segments, which are more or less 

 falcate in the expanded flower, smooth, or on the upper surface 

 marked with flat prominences, white, or of a splendid yellow or red 

 colour, never tessellated, the claws furnished with a distinct nectari- 

 ferous groove, which, however, is sometimes wanting; stamens, six 

 in number, equal in length, faintly perigynous, included; filaments, 

 elongated, thread-like, or slightly flattened, more or less curved; 



