ANNIVERSAEY ADDRESS 235 



he says, whether the snowdrop is indigenous in this 

 country. Hooker in his " Student's Flora " tells us that 

 the snowdrop is frequently naturalised in England and 

 Scotland, " hardly in Ireland," and adds that it is possibly 

 wild in Hertford and Denbigh. It is found, however, 

 practically wild in many places where it has probabl}'- 

 been a survival of old gardens of monastic and other 

 establishments, where gardening was in vogue in long 

 past ages. The plant seems more truly at home on the 

 Continent, where it grows all through Southern and 

 Central Europe, from the Pyrenees to the Caucasus, being 

 to all appearance native. The Mediterranean regions, 

 the Bosphorus and the Black Sea, with Asia Minor, 

 appear to be its headquarters. The earliest known figure 

 of a snowdrop is that of L'Obel, who gave a characteristic 

 M'ood engraving in his " Stirpium Historia," published at 

 Antwerp in 1576. This figure is Galanthas nivalis, our 

 common snowdrop. Our own Gerarde in 1597 uses this 

 figure of L'Obel's, and also an engraving of a larger 

 species which may have been G. Imperati, or possibly 

 G. plicatus. Then Clusius, in his "Historia" of 1601, 

 also uses these two figures, and tells us that the larger 

 snowdrop came to Europe by way of Constantinople. 

 The best account of the family generally is by Mr J. G. 

 Baker of Kew in his " Amaryllidacea3," where six species 

 are described, the seventh, that is, G. Fosteri having been 

 since described by him in the '' Gardener's Chronicle." 

 As it would take up too much time to go through 



categorically all the different characters of 

 Methods of the snowdrop, I must refer those who 

 CIassifi= wish to obtain fuller information to this 

 cation. work by Mr Baker. I may mention in 



passing that his characters are chiefly 

 drawn from the flowers and the markings on the 

 flowers. Mr Burbidge, however, takes a different plan in 

 arranging the characters of the species, and classifies 

 them according to the leaves, and by this means he is 



