NARCISSUS MI NOR. 
SMALL NARCISSUS. 
Class. 
HEXANDRIA. 
Order 
MONOGYNIA. 
Natural Order. 
AMARYLLXDACEiE. 
Native of 1 
Height. 
Flowers in 
Duration. 
Cultivated 
Spain. ' 
1 6 inches. 
April. 
Perennial. 
in 1596. 
No. 706. 
The derivation of the term Narcissus has been 
given under No. 225. 
There seems to be scarcely a doubt but that tlie 
plant which was originally called Narcissus by 
tlie Greeks, was our Narcissus poeticus ; and that 
it was adopted from some real or supposed narcotic 
quality. The greater portion of our old botanical 
names were intended by the ancient herbalists, who 
invented them, to point out some medicinal pro- 
perty; but we would warn our readers against sup- 
posing that the names which plants now bear are 
usually intended to indicate their qualities. It 
should be remembered that Linneus regarded it 
as a law of nomenclature, and the same has been 
held as conventional ever since, that well-formed 
names, used by the ancient classical writers, should 
be preferred to newly-invented ones. Now the 
very loose and indefinite manner in which the 
ancients described their plants, being, as they 
were, devoid of systematic classification, and the 
dark ages having obliterated traditional botany, 
it has been impossible for modern botanists to dis- 
cover to what plants certain names referred ; there- 
