29 



seedlings from one capsule, certainly not more than might be 

 expected considering the varieties of the two parents, especially 

 of N. poeticus which differ greatly from each, and the impro- 

 bability of the two having proceeded from precisely the same 

 varieties. The SpofForth mule has the tube green, above five- 

 eighths of an inch, at first perpendicularly curved, afterwards 

 rising half the right-angle, cup three-eighths long, five to six 

 eighths wide, so indented as to look fringed, at first faintly 

 tinged with yellow, turning the next day pure white, limb 

 stellate acute, an inch long, white, anthers all out of the 

 tube, equalling the style, shorter than the cup; leaves 

 glaucous, one-quarter wide, about nine inches high or more. 

 N. montanus poculiformis has the limb less stellate, it and the 

 cup about an eighth of an inch longer, the white not so clear, 

 the tube scarcely five-eighths, and is subject to great dis- 

 turbances and deficiencies. 1 have two flowers of it now 

 before me, of which one has only three segments and three 

 anthers and the cup split, the other has seven segments, three 

 anthers, and the cup split in two places. The SpofForth mule 

 has the flower very perfect and neat. Haworth's galanthifolius 

 is a third variety a little smaller. It has taken two centuries 

 to unmask the many frauds of Parkinson's supposed collector. 

 The leaf of N. montanus in the figure quoted is twice as broad 

 as it should be. In the same manner the figure of N. trilobatus 

 Bot. Mag. is probably Ganymedes concolor of Sweet, exagge- 

 rated in size and colour, for no such plant is either forthcoming 

 or remembered by any nurseryman or cultivator that I have 

 known. Whenever the cross between dubius and candidis- 

 simus shall be obtained, it will probably have the cup pure 

 white, and will be perhaps two-flowered. By crossing the 

 paper white, or the unicolor of Tenore with N. poeticus a 

 white-cupped N. biflorus would be obtained. W. H. 



36. ASPARAGUS lucidus. 



A. lucidus; ramis longissimis aculeis rectis scandentibus, foliis 8olitariis 

 linearibus falcatis lucidis, pedunculis unifloris. 



This is a scrambling plant of the most vivid green, form- 

 ing an entangled mass many feet in length, when cultivated 

 in the stove, but in its natural state not even a foot high. It 

 is a native of Macao, whence it was received by his Grace the 

 Duke of Northumberland, with whom it has produced its 



