FRITILLARY (Fritillaria: from Lat. fritillus, a chess-board, so called from the chequered markings on the petals)

This article appears in Volume V11, Page 236 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: FRA-GAE

FRITILLARY (Fritillaria: from Lat. fritillus, a chess-board, so called from the chequered markings on the petals) , a genus of

hardy

bulbous plants of the natural order Liliaceae, containing about 50 species widely distributed in the northern hemisphere. The genus is represented in Britain by the fritillary or snake's head, which occurs in moist meadows in the southern half of England, especially in

Oxfordshire

OXFORDSHIRE (or OxoN)

. A much larger plant is the crown imperial (F. imperialis), a native of western

Asia

ASIA

and well known in gardens. This grows to a height of about 3 ft., the lower part of the stoutish

stem

STEM (O. Eng. staefn, stemn, cf. Du. stain, Ger. Stamm, &c., probably related to " staff ")

being furnished with leaves, while near the top is developed a crown of large pendant

flowers

FLOWERS, ARTIFICIAL

surmounted' by a tuft of

bright

BRIGHT, JOHN (1811-188g)
BRIGHT, SIR CHARLES TILSTON

green leaves like those of the lower part of the

stem

STEM (O. Eng. staefn, stemn, cf. Du. stain, Ger. Stamm, &c., probably related to " staff ")

, only smaller. The

flowers

FLOWERS, ARTIFICIAL

are bell-shaped, yellow or red, and in some of the forms

double

. The plant grows freely in good

garden

GARDEN (from O. Fr. garden, mod. Fr. jardin; this, like our words " garth," a paddock attached to a building, and " yard," comes from a Teutonic word for an enclosure which appears in Gothic as gards and O. H. Ger. gart, cf. Dutch gaarde and Ger. .garten)

soil, preferring a deep well-drained

loam

LOAM (O.E. lam; the word appears in Dut. leem and Ger. Lehm; the ultimate origin is the root lai-, meaning " to be sticky," which is seen in the cognate " lime," Lat. limus, mud, clay)

, and is all the better for a top-dressing of manure as it approaches the flowering stage. Strong clumps of five or six roots of one kind have a very fine effect. It is a very suitable subject for the back row in mixed flower borders, or for recesses in the front part of shrubbery borders. It flowers in April or early in May. There are a few named varieties, but the most generally grown are the single and

double

yellow, and the single and double red,the single red having also two variegated varieties, with the leaves striped respectively with white and yellow.
" Fritillary " is also the name of a kind of butterfly.

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