72 AMARYLLIS ATAMASCO. ATAMASCO LILY. 



accompanying the drawing: "I think Zcphyranihcs is a good 

 genus, and clearly distinct from Amaryllis. It grows in dry 

 ground, and is rather a pine-barren plant. Another form from 

 swamps In Florida, sent by Mrs. Treat, will probably prove a 

 new sjDecies, and if so we shall call it Amaryllis Treatccr The 

 common Atamasco Lily, however, grows in low, wet places in 

 South Carolina, according to Elliott, while Dr. Baldwin says of 

 it : " Although most abundant about water-courses, I have seen 

 it on the highest ridges." It is, indeed, in many respects a 

 variable plant. We have rarely seen it with such vigorous 

 flowering shoots as those in the specimen which we illustrate, 

 and the color also is often of a much more rosy pink, while the 

 divisions of the perianth are sometimes much narrower. A 

 very curious variation is also noted by a correspondent of the 

 " Bulletin of the Torrey Botanical Club," who saw a specimen 

 growing in the garden of Moore's Hotel, Trenton Falls, N. Y., 

 which had an eight-parted flower-cup or perianth instead of a 

 six-parted one, as usual, and eight stamens with a four-parted 

 stigma. The flower was, in fact, tetramerous instead of trimerous, 

 a very unusual condition in endogens. 



When the flowers fade and die, they turn to a much deeper 

 shade. Mr. Rand, in his book on "Bulbs," says, indeed, that 

 " the Atamasco Lily produces rosy flowers, which with age turn 

 pure white," but this statement was probably made on the au- 

 thority of an earlier edition of an English work, by Green, and 

 Mr. Rand undoubtedly overlooked the fact that in a later edition 

 the error was acknowledged and corrected. 



The Atamasco Lily is a very early spring flower, giving great 

 beauty to southern fields and forests in March and April, accord- 

 ing to Dr. Chapman. Other authors extend its flowering time 

 somewhat. Prof. Wood saying that in its more northern local- 

 ities it blooms in May, while Dr. Gray even names June. It 

 barely reaches as far north as Pennsylvania by the way of the 

 Blue Mountains, and from that point it extends to the southeast 

 and the southwest, forming in its geographical distribution a tri- 

 angle, with the Gulf of Mexico as a base. 



