Lihacee—Fritillaria. 501 
posed to be of Turkish or Persian origin. It is one of the 
largest of the genus, having a leafy stem a yard or more high 
surmounted with a tuft of leaves or bracts, around and beneath 
which the flowers are disposed in a whorl. The flowers are 
about the size of ordinary Tulips, and vary in colour from yellow 
to crimson. It blooms in April, and is a very showy plant for 
inixed borders and among dwarf shrubs. 
F. Pérsicu is of the same habit with dull purple flowers. 
Another group has solitary terminal flowers, and to this belongs 
the Snake’s-head, #. Meleagris, a native of England, but now 
rarely seen in a wild state. This species is about a foot high, 
with 3 or 4 lanceolate leaves and reddish flowers streaked or 
spotted with purple, but varying from white CP. pri@cow of 
gardens) and yellow to dark purple. Several other species are 
occasionally seep, but with nothing particular to recommend 
them for a small garden: F. Pyrendica, dark purple, flowering 
in June; FF. latifolia, red, May—from the Caucasus; F. Kajn- 
tchathénsis and F. pullidijlora, from Siberia. 
6, LILIUM. 
Herbaceous plants with scaly bulbs, simple leafy stems 
branched only in the inflorescence, if at all, and large showy 
white, yellow, orange, carmine, or red and orange, often spotted 
or striped flowers. Perianth-segments free, creet, spreading, or 
reflexed, the three inner usually rather larger than the outer. 
Stamens 6, anthers on long slender filaments; pollen often 
orange or brown and very abundant. Fruit capsular, 3-celled 
and 3-valved ; seeds numerous. Name from Aeipioy, a lily ; or, 
according to some writers, from the Celtic i, white. The 
Lilies are all natives of the northern hemisphere, chiefly in 
temperate regions, a few only reaching the sub-tropical parts of 
Asia. Several of the species may be counted amongst the oldest 
and handsomest hardy plants in cultivation, and some of those 
of more recent introduction are truly gorgeous in the splendour 
of their flowers. Of late the cultivation of these plants has 
considerably revived, partly, doubtless, in ennsequence of the 
discovery of many fine new forms ; and at the present time the 
number of species and varieties in our gardens is very great. 
Most of the wild forms are tolerably distinct, but the species 
are ill-defined, and there are now so many varieties of an 
intermediate character in cultivation that it is a difficult task 
to refer them to their respective species, and one upon which no 
