and petals bearded at the base ; sylvestris petals bearded botli 

 at top and bottom: differences respectively accompanied by 

 others in the habit. Bijiora, it is said, is never found in 

 wet sandy spots, as celsiana and gesneriana often are, but 

 always in clayey saline places. The bulbs of all are eaten 

 raw by the Calmucs, especially by their children. The 

 bloom of biflora is slightly fragrant; and precedes by a few 

 days that of the other two. The stem is generally 2- 

 flowered ; but oftener with 1 , than either 3 or 4 flowers, 

 which it sometimes has. 



J 



All Mr, Griffin's samples were one-flowered. According 

 to Pallas, the secondary flower is generally abortive, having 

 a defective pistil, and occasionally only 4 petals, with the 

 same number of stamens. May not the two- and more- 

 flowered varieties, be the produce of the incidental con- 

 fluence of as many one-flowered scapes ? 



Biflora is distinguished among its congeners by never 

 having more than two leaves, and by a globular 3-cornered 

 capsule with a small simple point, as well as by diminutive- 

 ness. The corolla is white with a bright yellow base, and all 

 the petals, as well as filaments, more or less tearded at the 

 lower end, the outer three sessile, more spreading, twice 

 narrower than the inner, and faintly tinged with a violet 

 blue on the outside. The bulb-tuber dies when the capsule 

 ripens, after producing another perpendicularly downwards 

 from the base, besides a smaller lateral progeny; hence in 

 old plants deep accumulations of the exuviae of preceding 

 years are drawn up with the root, strung together by the 

 stem of the year. 



The sample which has been drawn for this work, flow- 

 ered in February last, in the greenhouse at South Lambeth. 



