NARCISSUS POETICUS AND ITS ALLIES "39 
medio-purpureus magno flore ; folio latiore J. Bauhin Hist. Pl. ii. 
600 (1 otek N. medio purpureus magno flore latiore Ray Hist. ii. 
1133 (1688 
Icones. -— Eng. Bot. 275, as N. ferent Nost. tab. fig. 6 
Leaves nearly as long as the scape, 9-13 mm. broad, glaucous, 
keeled ee channelled almost throughout. Scape 40-50 cm. long, 
finely striate, slender and attenuate upwards. Spattis rather 
larger and thicker than in the type; pedicel slender. Perianth- 
segments sometimes broader than in the type, with more ae 
reflexed margins. ae a little more deeply cupular than 
the type, with a rather broad white zone below the eS 
he flat base with finely plicate- denticulate-fimar riate margin, 
Style equalling or gee exceeding the shorter stamens. Other- 
Wise as in th 
N. majalis in a wild state very little is ae known, 
but, Judging from herbarium material, it appears to be the late- 
flowering Poet’s eee regarded as a native ‘of Pint rs in 
Ss. Pease since the time of Magnolius. It also occurs, of doubt- 
ful angie at Ghurnpigae , Dép. Maine-et-Loire i 1852, in 
and perhaps in other French localities. A west ern 
emer caer is attributed to it by Parkin sof 
The variety patellaris—a larger plant with tein often of 
similar size—was thought by Clusius to have come from Styria, 
and Salisbury, possibly from independent information, also nye 
that it grows wild in the Alps of Styria and Kartschia. On t 
other hand, Parkinson refers to it as obtained from Cccsisclinodle 
~— no wild specimen has been traced in herbaria, its origin remains 
rtain, but it would Ste oe ee on general ee orca 
Tike 1 the specific m Western Europe. An 
likely habitat is the Dy ieee. 
As garden plants both type and variety have been very long 
in cultivation in Britain and on the Continent. Johann Bauhin 
noticed the type in gardens at tape and refers to it as growing 
also in Belgium, Germany and England. The var. patellaris was 
observed by Clusius at Frankfort, and is the N. medio tad toe 
of Gerard, apparently the best known Poet’s Narcissus of t 
English gardens of his day. Gerard's name, however, may hav 
included the specific type as well as the variety, for Parkinso 
shows that both of them were grown with us at a little later date. 
Further evidence of the former frequency of the var. patellaris is 
rd and naturalization in Kent and other 
localities towards the close of the eighteenth neni which led 
to its inclusion as a British plant in English Botany and other 
subsequent floras. It is only during the last twenty years that. 
the species has become scarce in a gardens, and the var. 
patellaris is no longer easily obtaina 
N. majalis flowers in our saat in May, a little before the 
var. patellaris, which is almost the last member of the group 
to come into bloom, 
