Fritillary — Chambers's Encyclopaedia

Fritillary (Fritillaria), a genus of the Liliaceae, closely allied to the lily and tulip, are herbaceous and bulbous-rooted plants. About

Botanical illustration of a Common Fritillary (Fritillaria meleagris). The main drawing shows a single flower with a long, drooping, bell-shaped corolla and a prominent, dark, marbled spur. Below it is a smaller, more detailed drawing of the bulbous root system with a single flower emerging from it. — Common Fritillary
(*Fritillaria meleagris*).

Botanical illustration of Crown Imperial (Fritillaria imperialis). The main drawing shows a large, multi-flowered umbel with many drooping, bell-shaped flowers. To the left is a smaller, more detailed drawing of a single flower, labeled 'a', showing the intricate structure of the petals and the central spur. — Crown Imperial (*Fritillaria imperialis*):
a, flower enlarged.

twenty species are known, all palaearctic. All of them have drooping flowers; some of them are beautiful. One species only is a native of Britain, the Common Fritillary (F. melagris), also called Snake's Head, Chequer-flower, &c., which is found in meadows and pastures in the east and south of England, flowering in April or May. They are specially plentiful in the Magdalen water-meadows, Oxford. The flowers are pale or dark purple, tessellated with dark markings, sometimes cream-white. Many varieties are in cultivation.—This genus includes the Crown Imperial (F. imperialis), which was brought from Persia to Constantinople in the 16th century, and thence introduced through the imperial garden at Vienna into western Europe, where it soon became a constant inmate of the herbaceous border. The bulb of the common species, but still more of this one, is poisonous.