in the spring. Aurantiaca never dies away entirely, unless 

 perhaps if cut by severe frosts, but sends up fresh stems. 

 The capsule of aurantiaca is much less acutely pointed and 

 prolonged; its peduncles fewer flowered, less erect, and not 

 so long. The peduncles of aurantiaca in the border at 

 Spofforth are 4-inched and 3-flowered on a stem a yard high; 

 those of the plant called pulchella, 9-inched and 5-flowered 

 on a stem 12 or 13 inches high. The seed of aurantiaca is 

 very pale chesnut-coloured, the chalaza rather elevated and 

 a little tuberculated ; those of the other plant of a much 

 deeper chesnut, the tubercles which cover them fewer and 

 harsher, the chalaza flatter and smoother, the hilum shorter, 

 more distinctly marked and whiter. 



"Bomarea, amongst other diflTerences from Alstrcemeria, 

 has the ovules cumulate and a little imbricating, the capsule 

 coriaceous, not opening from the base and dissilient, but 

 widely dehiscent at the top, persistent and thrown back; the 

 seeds not ejected by disruption of the capsule, but adhesive, 

 covered with a soft pulpy coat. In all the known species the 

 stem is twining, and so far as I can ascertain, the style 

 tripartible. 



" Sphserine (mihi) has the capsule indehiscent, the seed- 

 coat pulpy, but less so than Bomarea, the stem tapering, 

 flexuous, but not twining. 



" Collania (mihi) has the stem rigid, the umbel nodding, 

 the leaves rigid, the flowers few, with a close tubular appear- 

 ance, gibbous at the base, the germen smaller than the base 

 of the flower, ribbed, turbinate, the fruit not known. 



" That the lobes on the point of the capsule in Alstrcemeria, 

 which are the bases of the three consolidated styles, and cor- 

 respond with the three angles or lobes of the stigma, are 

 opposite the ribs of the sepals, belongs in truth to the obser- 

 vations on the character of the order and not of the genus. 

 An amended generic character of the order will be attempted 

 in the revision of Amar\dlidace8e, preparing for the press." 



W. H. 



