eR eeeee ee me ee =. 
NARCISSUS POETICUS AND ITS ALLIES 35 
expecta as an indigenous plant east of the Alps would not be 
expecte 
a British garden plant, blooming in April, N. poeticus is 
Rick t have been continuously cultivated since the days of 
Gerard. It was a familiar plant in the seventeenth verom: and 
as late as 1833 was commonly grown for the on flower 
market. It has become scarce in England during the last _ 
oo SEDSretiey owing to its general supersession by N. exertus 
var. 
2. Narcissus VERBANENSIS, Noy, comb. 
Narcissus a. i comb.; N. poeticus var. verbanensis 
Herbert Amaryll. 317 (1837); N. poeticus subsp. radiiflorus 
i éorhakdes Mie Amaryll. 12 (1888); NV. poeticus subsp. 
397 (1900) var. verbanensis Ascherson and Grabner Synop. iii. 
a albes circulo croceo minor C. Bauhin Pinax, 49 (1623) ? 
fcon.—Herbert, /. c., tab. 37, fig. 2, as N. poeticus var. verba- 
nensis (mala). 
Plant dwarf. Bulb ovoid, very small, 12-15 mm. in diameter. 
Leaves narrow and erect, shorter than the scape, only 3-5 mm. 
broad, keeled and channelled. Scape 20-30 cm. long, pid 
striate, very slender. Spathe thinly poem lenoes of modera 
length ; icel_ very oul. usually short. Flower sen 
small, 3-5-4:5 em. in diamete wah. pdecte green tube and 
snow Wate perianth tinged with yellow or greenish at the base: 
perianth-segments imbricate or distinct, varying in shape from 
elliptical to oblong, rather shortly narrowed below, more or less 
strongly mucronate or cuspidate, spreading or recurved. Corona 
shortly cupular, small, 8-9 mm. broad and 2 mm. — — 
edged with red, margin finely plicate- crenulate-denta Stame 
unequal; three anthers exserted, three included in tke mri id 
tube; style rarely exceeding the longer ee Fruit about 
12 mm. long, ellipsoid, doubtfully trigonous and urrowed. 
Description from exsiccata collected at Ane the locus 
classicus. 
NV. verbanensis flowers in the latter half of May, and in i 
typical form is widely distributed in the Italian Lakes distriot 
In cid and the Sg Cenis district, and ean elsewhere in 
France, a different form occurs, perhaps varietally distinct, in 
which | the spathe i ‘ ae the perianth-segments much narrower, 
acute, oblanceolate and distant below, and the corona more 
desply <a cupular. 
It is apparently only in recent years that this graceful plant 
has been brought into British gardens, where most cultivators 
have found it a very Peete tenant. 
