oe 
29 
seedlings from one capsule, certainly not more than might be 
expected considering the varieties of the two parents, especially 
of N. poeticus which differ greatly from each, and the impro- 
bability of the two having proceeded from precisely the same 
varieties. The Spofforth mule has the tube green, above five- 
eighths of an inch, at first perpendicularly curved, afterwards 
rising half the right-angle, cup three-eighths long, five to six 
eighths wide, so indented as to look fringed, at first faintly 
tinged with yellow, turning the next day pure white, limb 
stellate acute, an inch long, white, anthers all out of the 
tube, equalling the style, shorter than the cup; leaves 
glaucous, one-quarter wide, about nine inches high or more. 
N. montanus poculiformis has thé limb less stellate, it and the 
cup about an eighth of an inch longer, the white not so clear, 
the tube scarcely five-eighths, and is subject to great dis- 
turbances and deficiencies. 1 have two flowers of it now 
before me, of which one has only three segments and three 
anthers and the cup split, the other has seven segments, three 
anthers, and the cup split in two places. The Spofforth mule 
has the flower very perfect and neat. Haworth's galanthifolius 
is a third variety a little smaller. It has taken two centuries 
to unmask the many frauds of Parkinson's supposed collector. 
The leaf of N. montanus in the figure quoted is twice as broad 
asitshould be. In the same manner the figure of N.trilobatus 
Bot. Mag. is probably Ganymedes concolor of Sweet, exagge- 
rated in size and colour, for no such plant is either forthcoming 
or remembered by any nurseryman or cultivator that I have 
nown. Whenever the cross between dubius and candidis- 
simus shall be obtained, it will probably have the cup pure 
white, and will be perhaps two-flowered. By crossing the 
paper white, or the unicolor of Tenore with N. poeticus a 
white-cupped N. biflorus would be obtained. W.H. 
36. ASPARAGUS lucidus. 
A. lucidus; ramis longissimis aculeis rectis scandentibus, folis solitariis 
linearibus faleatis lucidis, pedunculis unifloris. 
This is a scrambling plant of the most vivid green, form- 
ing an entangled mass many feet in length, when cultivated 
in the stove, but in its natural state not even a foot high. It 
is a native of Macao, whence it was received by his Grace the 
Duke of Northumberland, with whom it has produced its 
