MB. M. T. MASTEBS ON A NEW SPECIES OF EELLEVALIA. 113 



On a new species of Bellevalia from Mount Ida. By Maxwell 

 T. Masters, Esq., Lecturer on Botany at St. George's Hos- 

 pital, &c. Communicated by the Secretary. 

 [Read May 6, 1858.] 



Among the plants collected on Mount Ida by the medical officers 

 attached to the Civil Hospital at Renkioi, during the Crimean war, 

 is what appears to be a new species of Muscari, or rather of Belle- 

 valia, Kunth. For this opportunity of describing it, I am indebted 

 to my friends Drs. Armitage and Playne ; and I regret that the 

 name proposed for it (supposing it to be an undescribed species 

 of Muscari) is not applicable. Under this name, Muscari latifo- 

 Hum, it has been described by Dr. Kirk, one of its discoverers, 

 in a paper read before the Botanical Society of Edinburgh, in 

 January, and reported in the 'Edinburgh New Philosophical 

 Journal ' for April. But though in habit and external appearance 

 it presents the greatest resemblance to the species of Muscari, 

 yet the form of the perianth and the consolidated condition of the 

 styles and stigmata necessitate its being placed in the genus 

 Bellevalia of Kunth. If I am right in this conjecture, I would 

 venture to propose the name of Bellevalia Mtiscarioides for it, and 

 thus to define its characteristics more fully than has been done in 

 the report above referred to. 



Bellevalia. Floribus inferioribus campanulatis basi angulatis 

 pedicellatis horizontaliter patentibus vel pendentibus ; superiori- 

 bus tubulosis sessilibus approximatis neutris ; folio unico erecto 

 oblongo-acuto versus basin attenuate. 



Descr. — Habit, that of the species of Botryanihus or Mus- 

 cari, Kunth. — Bulb ovate. Leaf erect, oblong-acute, tapering 

 towards the base, 6-8 inches long, greatest width 8-10 lines. 

 ^ca'pe erect, twice the length of the leaves, bearing an oblong 

 crowded raceme 1-2 inches long ; lower pedicels horizontal or 

 pendent, 2-3 lines long, decreasing in length upwards; upper- 

 most flowers sessile. Bracts minute, membranaceous, lanceolate; 

 Berianth in perfect flowers purple, 2-3 lines long, deciduous, cam- 

 panulate, angular at the base, not contracted at the throat, limb 

 divided into six short-ovate connivent lobes. Upper flowers azure- 

 blue, tubular, sessile, barren. Stamens six, arising from the middle 

 of the tube of the perianth, included. Anthers adnate, bluish. 

 Ovary deeply three-lobed, slightly rugose on the surface, three^ 

 celled, each cell containing two large flattened ovules superposed. 

 Style one, tapering, as long as the ovary, included. Stigma entire 



LINN. PROG. — BOTANY. I 



