366 



On the Cultivation of Rare Plants. 



to the fragrance of its flowers in the words " wmoov" as the 

 second does to the colour of its crown in that of "purpureo 

 but my belief is chiefly founded on the locality of the plant. 

 Clusius, who first distinguished it from the other two spe- 

 cies with a scarlet rim, after informing us that he had ob- 

 served it in some meadows of Languedoc, adds, that it was 

 in those days constantly sent, with other bulbous roots, from 

 Constantinople ; and he notices its peculiar character of occa- 

 sionally producing two flowers on a stalk. I have a speci- 

 men gathered in some part of Greece, which Sherard sent 

 to the learned Dr. Uvedale; and to ascertain Clusius' 

 plant more positively, when Broussonet was last in this 

 country, I requested him to send me wild roots from Mont- 

 pellier. This he did the following year ; and had that zealous 

 naturalist's life been spared, I am well assured that we should 

 now have been indebted to him for an exquisitely fine fla- 

 voured Plum, which by his directions I long ago met with at 

 Carcassone, and which he believed had been left there by the 

 Moors. The roots from Montpellier proved to be of this spe- 

 cies, and one of them produced two flowers on a stalk, which 

 I have never yet seen in Radiiflorus, or Patellaris* It is 

 equally hardy, delighting in moist loam, and flowering here 

 immediately after Radiiflorus. 



* Since the above was written, I have met with a biflorous specimen of PateU 



