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CHAP. 12.—THE NARCISSUS: THREE VARIETIES OF IT.

There is a purple1 lily, too, which sometimes has a double stem; it differs only from the other lilies in having a more fleshy root and a bulb of larger size, but undivided:2 the name given to it is "narcissus"3 A second variety of this lily has a white flower, with a purple corolla. There is also this difference between the ordinary lily and the narcissus, that in the latter the leaves spring from the root of the plant. The finest are those which grow on the mountains of Lycia. A third variety is similar to the others in every respect, except that the corolla of the plant is green. They are all of them late4 flowers: indeed, they only bloom after the setting of Arcturus,5 and at the time of the autumnal equinox.

1 Fée remarks, that it is singular that Pliny, as also Virgil, Eel. v. l. 38, should have given the epithet "purpureus" to the Narcissus. It is owing, Fée says, to the red nectary of the flower, which is also bordered with a very bright red.

2 Into cloves or offsets.

3 The Narcissus poeticus of Linnæus. Pliny gives the origin of its name in c. 75 of this Book.

4 Though supported by Theophrastus, this assertion is quite erroneous. In France, even, Fée says, the Narcissus poeticus blossoms at the end of April, and sooner, probably, in the climates of Greece and Italy.

5 See B. xviii. c. 76. It is just possible that Pliny and Theophrastus may be speaking of the Narcissus scrotinus of Linnæus, which is found in great abundance in the southern provinces of Naples, and is undoubtedly the flower alluded to by Virgil in the words, "Nee sera comantem Narcissum," Georg. iv. ll. 122, 123.

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