considering this and all the other species of Bodecatheon are 

 but varieties of the original B. Meadia, into which all pass by 

 insensible gradations. Of these the subject of the present 

 plate is one of the most distinct in size, in the brilliant colour 

 of its few flowers, in its few small involucral bracts, and in its 

 narrow dark stamens; but none of these characters are constant, 

 least of all that of colour, which varies to lilac and white ; 

 whilst the petioles of the leaf are sometimes as long as the 

 blade. It is a singular fact that a genus so widely dispersed as 

 Bodecatheon is, throughout a belt of thirty degrees of latitude, 

 and extending in longitude right across America, and to the 

 islands of the Aleutian Sea, and Behring's Straits, should be 

 found only on one spot on the opposite coast of N. America, 

 and not extend westward of the Gulf of St. Lawrence. 



The specimens from which our plate was taken were raised 

 from seed collected in the mountains of British Columbia, 

 and which flowered at Kew in May of the present year. It 

 is by far the most brightly coloured form hitherto discovered, 

 and is very ornamental. — J. B. H. 



Fig. 1, Flower, with the corolla segments removed ; 2, calyx and 

 ovary : — both magnified. 



