rtists, sculptors, and architects, as
the emblem of female elegance and purity, and none of us would dispute
its claim to such a position. There is no other Lily which can surpass
it, when well grown, in stateliness and elegance, with sweet-scented
flowers of the purest white and the most graceful shape, and crowning
the top of the long leafy stem with such a coronal as no other plant can
show. On the rare beauties and excellences of the White Lily it would be
easy to fill a volume merely with extracts from old writers, and such a
volume would be far from uninteresting. Those who wish for some such
account may refer to the "Monographie Historique et Litteraire des Lis,"
par Fr. de Cannart d'Hamale, 1870. There they will find more than fifty
pages of the botany, literary history, poetry, and medical uses of the
plant, together with its application to religious emblems, numismatics,
heraldry, painting, &c. Two short extracts will suffice here:--"Le lis
blanc, surnomme la fleur des fleurs, les delices de Venus, la Rose de
Junon, qu'Anguillara designa sous le nom d'Ambrosia, probablement a
cause de son parfum suivant, et pent etre aussi de sa soidisante divine
origine, se place tout naturellement a le tete de ce groupe splendide."
"C'est le Lis classique, par excellence, et en meme temps le plus beau
du genre."

The other is the large Scarlet or Chalcedonian Lily; and this also is
one of the very handsomest, though its beauty is of a very different
kind to the White Lily. The habit of the plant is equally stately, and
is indeed very grand, but the colours are of the brightest and clearest
red. These two plants were abundantly grown in Shakespeare's time, but
besides these there do not seem to have been more than about
half-a-dozen species in cultivation. There are now forty-six recognized
species, besides varieties in great number.

The Lily has a very wide geographical range, spreading from Central
Europe to the Philippines, and species are found in all quarters of the
globe, though the chief homes of the family seem to be in California and
Japan. Yet we have no wild Lily in England. Both the Martagon and the
Pyrenean Lily have been found, but there is no doubt they are garden
escapes.

As a garden plant it may safely be said that no garden can make any
pretence to the name that cannot show a good display of Lilies, many or
few. Yet the Lily is a most capricious plant; while in one garden almost
any sort will grow luxur