known to botanists for the last two hundred years, and there 

 is perhaps hardly any other bulbous plant that has received 

 so many different names, as it has had six different specific 

 names, and the small group of bulbous Irises to which it 

 belongs has been characterised as a genus five times by as 

 many different authorities. The specimen drawn was 

 flowered at Kew at the end of last December, and was 

 received from Mr. T. S. Ware, of Tottenham. 



Descr. Bulb ovoid, one or two inches in diameter, with 

 brown membranous tunics and a tuft of four or five fleshy 

 cylindrical white root-fibres. Produced leaves five or six, con- 

 temporary with the flowers, lanceolate, acuminate, suberect, 

 about half a foot long, narrowed from near the base gradually 

 to the point, moderately firm in texture. Stem none above 

 the soil, so that the usually one-flowered spathe is sessile in 

 the centre of the rosette of leaves. Spathe valves lanceolate, 

 membranous, two to four inches long. Perianth delicate 

 lilac with darker blotches; tube cylindrical, three to six 

 inches long; outer segments of the limb obovate-cuneate, 

 two or three inches long, reflexing considerably above the 

 middle, keeled with bright yellow, not bearded ; inner seg- 

 ments of the limb about an inch long, oblanceolate unguiou- 

 late, spreading from the top of the tube. Stigmas with their 

 large dimidiate-oblong toothed crests nearly as long as the 

 outer segments of the perianth. Anthers yellowish, about 

 as long as the free filaments. Capsule oblong, sessile like 

 that of Colchicum on the surface of the soil in the centre of 

 the leaves. Seeds brown, as large as a pea. — /. G. Baker. 



