98 FAMILIAR WILD FLOWERS. 



over sixty years growing plentifully near Roslip Common, 

 in Middlesex ; and Cullum, a contemporary, speaks of its 

 growing in similar abundance around Bury St. Edmunds. 

 It is also reported from several localities in Surrey and 

 Sussex, and in one of the scientific periodicals we find a 

 writer stating, " Found by me abundantly on an island in 

 the Tame, near Tamworth, Staffordshire ; and by a friend, 

 in still greater profusion, in the damp meadows at Oxford, 

 on the banks of the Isis." We hear of it in this way in 

 various directions, and as whenever it occurs it is always 

 recorded as being in abundance and covering a large area of 

 ground, it may, we think, rightfully be included in our 

 series, a point being perhaps additionally strained in its 

 favour on account of its quaint singularity. One of our 

 old authors, in speaking of it, says, " Of the facultie of 

 these pleasant floures there is nothing set doune in the 

 antient or later Writers, but are greatly esteemed for the 

 beautifying of our gardens and the bosoms of the beautifull." 

 A plant that has no " vertuas " is itself a great singularity, 

 and when almost everything was turned to some more or 

 less practical use, based on some more or less recondite 

 reasoning, we wonder greatly that this plant, which is also 

 called snake's-head, was not an antidote for the biting 

 of venomous serpents or some such perils and mischances. 

 The name snake's-head does not strike one as being 

 especially appropriate on an inspection of our illustration ; 

 but any one who has seen the plant before the blossoms are 

 expanded will at once notice the resemblance between a 

 snake's head and the bud of the plant, its form and colour 

 being alike very suggestive of it. 



The root of the fritillary is bulbous in character. It is 

 about as large as a hazel-nut, solid, white, roundish, and 



