50 FAMILIAR GARDEN FLOWERS. 



answer may pvove of some interest to the readei'. A lily, 

 and every relation of a lily, should have a flower of six parts, 

 which may be divided to the base, or only eleft into six lobes. 

 Now, in many instances three of these are so placed as to 

 be within or without the other three. In the flower of any 

 true lily it may be seen without the aid of a botanist that 

 the divisions of the flower are in two sets of three each ; 

 they nre usually of equal length, but one set of three is 

 distinctly placed within, and the other set without the 

 general compass of the flower. We may speak of the outer 

 divisions as forming' the calyx, and the inner as forming 

 the corolla. But we do not use saeli terms ; the flower of 

 a lily is called the perianth, and the six divisions are only 

 distinguished as inner and outer segments. 



The Cape cowslips were introduced from the Cape of 

 Good Hope about the year 1771-. The well-known LacJie- 

 naVm tricolor was the first of the throng, and in the opinion 

 of the present writer is the best even now. It was figured 

 in the Bolaiiical Magazine in the year 1790 (t. 82). 



It is interesting to trace the history of the nomencla- 

 ture of the flower. Jacquin described it as Lacheiialiii , in 

 honour of Warnerus dc la Chetial , a Swiss botanist, and 

 the name remains to this day. But Linnreus described it 

 as Pliorniiam aloiiles, and it has also been named Ih/a- 

 ciitllins orchioides. The generic term Phoniiin m is now 

 a[)plied to the great New Zealand flax, and there is no 

 more occasion for a change. 



The beautiful flower before us is a varietj' of Laclie- 

 nalia tricolor; of that there can be no doubt whatever. 

 It was introduced at the same time as tricolor, and for 

 a time was regarded as a separate species. It differs 

 from the other Ijoth in form and colour, the longest seg- 



