HTA CINTH-B ULBS. 8 1 9 



tage to the species where it occurred that it has been increased and 

 developed from generation to generation through natural selection. 

 Now, what such plants do for their offspring, the hyacinth and many 

 others like it do for themselves. The lily family, at least in the tem- 

 perate regions, seldom grows into a tree-like form ; but many of them 

 have acquired a habit which enables them to live on almost as well as 

 trees from season to season, though their leaves die down completely 

 with each recurring winter. If you cut open a hyacinth-bulb, or, 

 what is simpler to experiment upon, an onion, you will find that it 

 consists of several short abortive leaves, or thick fleshy scales. In 

 these subterranean leaves the plant stores up the food-stuffs elaborated 

 by its green portions during the summer ; and there they lie the whole 

 winter through, ready to send up a flowering stem early in the suc- 

 ceeding spring. The material in the old bulb is used in thus pro- 

 ducing leaves and blossoms at the beginning of the second or third 

 season ; but fresh bulbs grow out anew from its side, and in these the 

 plant once more stores up fresh material for the succeeding year's 

 growth. 



The hyacinths which we keep in glasses on our mantel-pieces rep- 

 resent such a reserve of three or four years' accumulation. They have 

 purposely been prevented from flowering, in order to make them pro- 

 duce finer trusses of bloom when they are at length permitted to follow 

 their own free-will. Thus the bulb contains material enough to send 

 up leaves and blossoms from its own resources ; and it will do so even 

 if grown entirely in the dark. In that case the leaves will be pale 

 yellow or faintly greenish, because the true green pigment, which is 

 the active agent of digestion, can only be produced under the influence 

 of light ; whereas, the flowers will retain their proper color, because 

 their pigment is always due to oxidation alone, and is but little de- 

 pendent upon the rays of sunshine. Even if grown in an ordinary 

 room, away from the window, the leaves seldom assume their proper 

 deep tone of full green ; they are mainly dependent on the food -stuffs 

 laid by in the bulb, and do but little active work on their own account. 

 After the hyacinth has flowered, the bulb is reduced to an empty and 

 flaccid mass of watery brown scales. 



Among all the lily kind, such devices for storing up useful mate- 

 rial, either in bulbs or in the very similar organs known as corms, are 

 extremely common. As a consequence, many of them produce unusu- 

 ally large and showy flowers. Even among our native English lilies 

 we can boast of such beautiful blossoms as the fritillary, the wild 

 hyacinth, the meadow-saffron, and the two pretty squills ; while in 

 our gardens the tiger-lilies, tulips, tuberoses, and many others belong 

 to the same handsome bulbous group. Closely-allied families give us 

 the bulb-bearing narcissus, daffodil, snow-drop, amaryllis, and Guernsey 

 lily ; the crocus, gladiolus, iris, and corn-flag ; while the neighboring 

 tribe of orchids, most of which have tubers, probably produce more 



