AMARYLLIS FAMILY 



ant's Eye, Narcissus poeiicus. Botanically, it differs from the 

 Trumpet in the shorter corona and the longer perianth tube, but 

 resembles it in bulb, and leaf, and structure of the flower. Both 

 the type and its variants are reputed hardy. 



POET'S NARCISSUS. PHEASANT'S EYE 



Narcissus poHicus. 



Strong -growing species; sometimes a foot and a half high; the ijpt 

 of the short-crowned group. Native to France, Switzerland, and soutliern 

 Europe. Naturalizes readily in this country. May. 



Bulh. — About an inch thick. 



Leaves. — Flat, somewhat glaucous. 



Scape. — Two-edged, eight to twelve inches high. 



F/ow«ri.— Solitary, fragrant, wide open; the obovate segments vihite; 

 the very short yellowish corona much crisped and red-edged. A double 

 form is pure white. 



Narcissus poeiicus is in this country the most vigorous species of 

 the genus. It naturalizes readily and may be grovm successfully 

 either in garden beds or scattered through the grass. Indeed the 

 plant often does better in half-neglected places than in the well- 

 kept border where it has richer soil and more consideration. 

 It rather hkes to be a weed. Should an old bed of posticus fail to 

 flower satisfactorily, the probable reason is that the bulbs have 

 increased beyond the capacity of the bed, and that they are starving. 



The name poeticus implies that this species is that of the clas- 

 sical writers of antiquity; but the ancients were so indefinite in their 

 descriptions of plants and flowers that a satisfactory decision is 

 impossible. The plant which replaced the youth who died from 

 love of himself, Ovid says, was yellow ; Virgil once calls it yellow, 

 and a second time refers to it as purple ; Dioscorides records it as 

 purple. Narcissus poeiicus is white, with a small yellow corona 

 strikingly red-edged, so that there is in the flower both yellow and 

 red. It is believed that the ancients often confounded red and 

 purple, if, indeed, their purple was not our red. The identifica- 



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