8 
Our plant shows then a very peculiar structure of rhizome, 
it being short, densely covered with tuber-like leaves, supporting 
and partly enclosing axillary buds, able to produce new individ- 
uals, and these are therefore very important in the propagation 
of the species. Three different kinds of leaves are present—tuber- 
like, scale-like and normal ones. The function of these thickened 
leaf-bases is tndoubtedly the same as the fleshy scales of the 
monocotyledonous “leek” of Lz/éum for instance, containing 
large deposits of starch, besides that they by dropping from the 
rhizome are able to raise new individuals. In regard to the 
germination, this does not seem to be known, and it would be 
highly desirable to obtain some seeds so as to study the very first 
stage of this interesting species. If we might conclude something 
from the mature plant and reduce the figure of this to the germin- 
ating plantlet itself, might we then not suggest a germination with 
but one cotyledon, like in some species of the closely allied genus 
Corydalis, and that the base of this leaf-like cotyledon would show 
the same swollen form as that of a normal leaf, and partly enclos- 
ing the plumule ? 
Krigia Dandelion. There are a few interesting circumstances 
to be observed in the rhizome of this species, which do not seem 
to have been perfectly known before, and it may not, therefore, 
be superfluous to describe them a little more concisely. At least 
in the sixth edition of Gray’s Manual of Botany the specific diag- 
nosis does not give any clear explanation of the rhizome, but in- 
dicates merely the roots as being “slender and _tuberiferous.” 
“Tuberous” roots occur frequently in several families, but 
“tuberiferous” i. e. by tubers giving rise to new individuals, 
can not exist, if we will take the expression ‘“‘tuber”’ in its proper 
sense. Roots, forming true bulbs, are on the contrary known 
and have been mentioned by Warming * as occurring in Sez/la 
Hughii. It gave me, however, the impulse to examine the case 
myself, and the following note is the result of my examination. 
Several specimens were collected in the vicinity of Washington, 
where it grows abundantly in shady woods, and all my specimens 
showed the presence of several true tubers. These tubers, as it will 
* Eug. Warming: Smaa biologiske og morphologiske Bidrag. Botanisk Tids- : 
skrift, Vol. Il, Series III, 1877~’79, pag. 61. 
