Bulb roundish, white, about the size of a small hazel nut, 
with many slender roots from its base. Stem (in native 
specimens, from seven inches to a foot high, in the culti- 
vated specimen one foot ten inches) erect, simple, single- 
flowered in native plants, and almost always so in such, 
according to Lepesour; in the cultivated ones three-flow- 
ered, pruinoso-glaucous, brown and speckled towards its 
base, obscurely three-sided, naked for a considerable way 
above the base. Leaves scattered, smaller upwards (in 
native individuals four to five, the lower three inches long, 
in the cultivated seven, the lower six inches long,) lanceo- 
lato-linear, channelled along the upper surface, blunt, sub- 
erect, pruinoso-glaucous, half stem-clasping. Flowers geue- 
rally solitary in the wild plant, one to three in the cultivated, 
springing from a common point at the top of the stem be- 
tween two subopposite leaves, and provided with peduncles 
(above two inches long), nodding, dark blood-red, obscure- 
ly tessellated, pale, more yellow and more distinctly varie- 
gated within, nectaries linear ; outer petals oblong, slightly 
spreading at the apices, inner broader, obovate, connivent 
at the apex. Stamens subequal, about half the length of 
the corolla; filaments subulate, slightly dilated at the base, 
and very sparingly glanduloso-pubescent ; anthers oblong, 
ellow ; pollen granules small, oblong, yellow. Pistil rather 
onger than the stamens; stigma tripartite, erecto-patent, 
green ; style triangular, cleft to about its middle, the stig- 
matic surface extending along the inside of the segments ; 
germen of uniform diameter from end to end, distinctly 
grooved along the angles, and more obscurely along the 
sides ; ovules very numerous, two-rowed in each cell. 
This plant was obtained by Davip Fatconar, Esq, from Mr. Goupie, 
who brought it from Russia. It varies a little from the wild state. 
have native specimens both from Dr, Fiscurr of St. Petersburg and 
from Professor Lepesour. The former are smaller, but the inflores- 
cence is larger, and the leaves, which are longer and narrower, are 
collected nearer to the flower. Even in a wild state, it appears from 
Lepesovr, that occasionally, though rarely, there are more flowers than 
one on the stem, and the two lowest leaves are sometimes subopposite. 
I cannot but think that this plant scarcely differs more from F. Melea- 
gris than some of the acknowledged varieties of this species. The great 
length of the pendulous part of the stem or peduncle, which LepEBoUR 
considers characteristic, and which is figured in his beautiful illustrations 
of the Flora Altaica, is not possessed by my native specimens, nor by 
Mr. Fatconar’s plant, and the flower in the figure is much less lurid, 
and longer in proportion to its breadth, than any of these. Graham. — 
—4 
Fig. 1. Petal. 2. Pistil: magnified. 
