Tas. 5896. 
NOTHOSCORDUM avrevm. 
Native of California. 
Nat. Ord. Littacem.—Tribe AspHODELEA. 
Genus Noroscorpum, Kunth ; (Enum. Plant., vol. iv. p. 457). 
Nornoscorpum aureum; folio solitario e basi angustato elongato lineari 
pedali 4 poll. diam. apice attenuato scapum gracillimum superante, 
spatha parva membranacea 2-valve, floribus numerosis aureis gracillime 
pedicellatis, pedicellis basi bracteolatis, perianthii foliolis lineari- 
oblongis obtusis dorso apice viridibus et rubro-marginatis, filamentis 
erectis e basi quadrata carnosa puberula filiformibus alternis longioribus, 
antheris parvis virescenti-azureis, ovario elliptico, stylo filiformi, ovulis 
numerosis. 
Buoomerra aurea, Kellogg in the Hesperian, p. 437, cum tone. 
The first notice of this plant that I have met with is 
in a Californian publication, for which I am indebted to Dr. 
Masters, F.R.S.; and where it is described by Dr. Kellogg as 
a new genus, Bloomeria, in honour of Mr. H. G. Bloomer, the 
Botanical Curator of the Californian Academy of Sciences, 
who cultivated it from bulbs discovered in New Idria by Dr. 
J. A. Veatch. The specimen here figured was raised from 
bulbs communicated to the Royal Gardens by Dr. Bolander, 
of San Francisco, an old and valued correspondent, in 1569, 
and which flowered in July of the same year. 
As a genus, Bloomeria does not seem to me to differ from 
Nothoscordum, itself perhaps too near Allium, to which it is 
reduced by Asa Gray and others, but from which it may be 
distinguished by its numerous ovules. The other species 
of Nothoscordum are chiefly South American. There 1s one 
United States species which has been considered identical 
with a common South American, and which, if so, extends 
from Virginia to Philadelphia—a very unusual range for a 
plant of this family; this is the Allium striatum, Jacq. 
APRIL Ist, 1871. 
