First among the true _Martagons_ stands the lily which has given its name to the group—_Lilium Martagon_, or _the_ Turk’s-cap lily. This lily has a very wide range, being found wild throughout Central Europe and Siberia. We have said that it also grows wild in England, but our readers can hardly expect ever to see the plant growing wild in our island. It used to be fairly plentiful in Surrey, Devonshire and the Isle of Wight, but the rage for collecting specimens has pretty well exterminated the species from our shores. It is, however, occasionally met with, especially in Surrey. The _Martagon_ lily is one of our oldest garden flowers. When once established, it is very loath to go and very free to increase, so in many gardens this lily has come up and flowered every year for centuries. The bulb of _Lilium Martagon_ is about the size of a hen’s egg, and of the ordinary ovoidal shape. It is very compact and usually stained on the outside with bright yellow or purple. The leaves are of a greyish-green colour and are arranged in whorls. The flower-head is visible when the plant is but a few inches high. It consists of from four to forty little buds closely packed together. The lily flowers in July, and a well-grown specimen is a very pretty object. The flower spike forms a perfect cone or pyramid. The blossoms are very small—about one and a quarter inches across—and borne on stalks which grow out at right angles to the main stem. These stalks gradually diminish in length as they get towards the top, thus producing the characteristic cone shape. The nodding blossoms are of a lilac-purple, splashed and spotted with claret colour. The pollen is red, the segments of the perianth are fleshy and very much curled. There are several well-marked varieties of the _Martagon_ lilies. The variety _Dalmaticum_, as its name implies, is found in Dalmatia. It is a finer plant than the type. The leaves are deep glossy green, and the flowers are very dark purple. In another variety called _Cattaneae_, the flowers are still darker, appearing in some lights to be quite black. There is a white variety of the _Martagon_ lily, a lovely little gem, which, though rare, is one of the easiest culture. It is curious that this is the only variety in the whole group of _Martagons_ which bears white flowers. It is of garden origin, and is not found in the wild state. Then there is the double _Martagon_, about the stupidest flower which owns the name of lily. It is extraordinary the rage people have for double flowers. It is very rarely that a double flower has half the beauty of the single variety. In the rose, the chrysanthemum, the aster and other composite flowers, the double varieties are indeed vastly superior to the single flowers. But to us all the double bulbous plants are incomparably inferior to the single ones. In the lilies, the double varieties are scarcely worth growing.