The reader will be by this time aware that of the plants called by the general English name of "lily," some have very little kinship to each other, and others none at all. The little garden flowers named Lilium (from the Celtic word lis, "whiteness") are mostly very handsome. Ben Jonson, speaking of the ordinary lily, says, very finely—
"It is not growing like a tree
In bulk, doth make man better be,
Or standing long, an oak, three hundred year,
To fall a log at last, dry, bald, and sear:
A lily of a day
Is fairer far in May,
Although it fall and die that night,—
It was the plant and flower of light."