DODECATHEON MEADIA. (SuHoortine Star.) 
BY KATHARINE BRANDEGEE. 
Since the publication of the Botany of California and the Syn- 
optical Flora, three papers dealing with Dodecatheon have *: 
peared in American journals. The first by Mr. A. F. Foerste* 
a most interesting contribution to our knowledge of its uct 
and growth ; the second a tentative revision by Dr. Gray} suggest- 
ing rather doubtfully five species, one of them, D. Hendersonz, new; 
and the third by. E. L. Greene§ in which three new species are 
proposed upon very trivial and inconstant characters. 
It has been known ever since the cultivation of Dodecatheon in 
gardens, that it was most easily propagated from root-buds. Mr. 
Foerste in the paper alluded to above has shown by figures the 
formation of these buds, and makes the interesting observation that 
the leaf-arrangement is preserved in the roots. That these buds atthe 
upper ends of the roots are developed in the axils of leaves is difficult 
of demonstration in the common variety with very short rootstock, 
but in the form known as var. a/pinum, which belongs to high alti- 
tudes, and generally grows in bogs, the rootstock is often much 
elongated, and the transition from leaves with a bud above and a | 
root below, to scales more and more reduced, but holding the same 
position, can be easily seen. These roots are thick and fleshy, 
abound in starch for some distance from their origin, and when sep- 
arated from the parent plant by its decay, by the scratching of birds 
or the rooting of hogs, are quite capable of giving their buds a fair 
start in life. In some forms the roots of a variable number of the 
numerous buds produced around the rootstock cease growing at a 
short distance from the stem, and have nearly the appearance of 
small wheat grains, and their connection with the parent not being 
strengthened by the passing of nutriment is much slighter. This 
character, though so obviously inconstant and dependent like the 
number of the leaves, largely upon the character of the soil or the 
degree of moisture, has been relied upon as the principal one to 
distinguish two species, D. patulum and D. Clevelandi Greene. 
These rootbuds, whatever their form or the extent to which 
the attached root is produced, are equally capable of independent 
growth, and at least in Central California most of the new w plants 
*Torr. Bull, XI, 31. Bot. Gaz. an Pre §Pitt. I, 209. 
