FBITILLAKY. 



Fritillaria meleagris. Nat. Ord. , LiHacea. 



HE fritillary is an exceedingly local 

 plant, so that one may be noticing 

 flowers for years and yet never 

 have entered a district in which the 

 subject of our illustration is found. 

 Where it occurs, however, it is 

 ordinarily in profusion, and comes 

 up year after year. The fritillary 

 springs up in moist meadows and 

 pasture-land, and more rarely in 

 the open glades of woods. It is 

 found in various parts of England, 

 but chiefly in the south and east ; 

 we do not hear of its occurring in 

 either Scotland or Ireland. It 

 flowers during the month of April, 

 and only lasts for a short time. Curtis, in his "Flora 

 Londinensis," mentions it as one of the plants found in the 

 vicinity of the metropolis, giving as localities the meadows 

 between Mortlake and Kew in the west, and similar situations 

 round Enfield to the north of London, and again, to the south- 

 east, in a wood at Bromley, in Kent. Blackstone, an earlier 

 writer, incidentally mentions that it had been observed for 

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