1143 
TULIPA Oculus Solis; var. Persica. 
Persian Sun’s Eye Tulip. 
Comey 
HEXANDRIA MONOGYNI4A. 
Nat. ord. LInIacEx. 
TULIPA. Supra, vol. 2. fol. 127; et vol. 3. fol. 204. 
7, Oculus solis; integumento bulbi intus lanato, foliis 4 subciliatis caule 
floreque glaberrimis, labris conniventibus-stigmatum villoso-fimbriatis. 
Ker, supra, vol. 3. fol. 204, with the synonyms. : 
B. Persica ; foliis latioribus magis glaucis, perianthio maximo, integumento 
pulbi intus hirsuto. : 
We are tempted to figure this variety, not only for the 
sake of its great beauty and rarity, but also as a form not — 
less remarkable for its large flowers than for its native 
country, and the peculiarity of the integuments of its roots. 
The Agen, or Sun’s Eye Tulip, is singular in the genus 
for a deep black eye, or base to the perianthium in the 
inside, which is bordered by a margin of yellow interposed 
between it and the vermilion red of the rest of the peri- 
anthium : when expanded beneath the influence of a bright 
sun, the effect of this is surprisingly beautiful; the flowers 
rarely open under less favourable circumstances. Hitherto 
it has been only discovered wild in the south of Europe, 
about Agen, and the village of Brusquet in Provence. 
But the variety now represented having been collected 
by Sir Henry Willoch in Persia, and transmitted to the 
Horticultural Society, another and less suspicious habitat 
has been discovered for it. It was received in 1826; and 
from a plant which flowered in the Chiswick Garden, in 
March 1827, our drawing was taken. 
The roots of the common European kind are densely 
clothed with wool beneath the outer integuments, —a pro- 
vision, as it would seem, by which Nature seeks to guard 
’ 
