moil about Lima in fields and hedges, flowering in January 

 and February, and that it is called Hamancce de Antibo, 

 which means satiny Hamanca. We have wild specimens 

 gathered near Lima by Mr. Mathews (No. 400). 



There is no doubt of its being the Amaryllis aurea of the 

 Flora Peruviana, notwithstanding its smaller size, which is 

 owing to cultivation, its longer style, which it may be sup- 

 posed is more fully formed than the Perianth, and some dis- 

 crepancies between it and the figure given by Ruiz and 

 Pavon. The latter appears to have been made from a dried 

 specimen, and is very inaccurate in many respects. In the 

 first place, the flower is represented as stalked ; certainly it 

 is sessile ; secondly, the stamens are said to arise froni 

 scales in the mouth of the tube ; there are no such scales ; 

 and finally, all that concerns the form of the tube of the 

 flower and the ovary is a mere caricature. 



Whether or not the genus Pyrolirion is a good one, we 

 have not the means at hand of determining to our satisfac- 

 tion ; as it has not any such campanulate flower as has been 

 represented by Ruiz and Pavon, the most prominent feature 

 in its supposed character is done away with, and then it 

 becomes difl&cult to separate it from Zephyranthes ; it differs, 

 however, from that genus in its sessile flowers, which we 

 incline to consider a character of much importance, and in 

 the dilatation of the points of its stigma into little spoons. 

 From Oporanthm, which is totally different from Sternbergia, 

 it is chiefly its stigma and the reflexed points of its perianth 

 which distinguish it, unless the seeds should prove different, 

 as the form of the ovules renders probable. 



In the mean while, until the remainder of the structure 

 of this plant shall have been ascertained, we adopt Mr. 

 Herbert's name, without however attempting to define the 

 species, for we do not see what are the distinctive characters 

 of either P. flavum or Jlammeum. 



