278 



THE aARDENER'S MONTHLY 



[Septkmbeb, 



cream yellow color ; inside, spongy and black ; 

 the centre, dull rose or brick color, and slimy; 

 the globular mass about two inches in diameter. 

 This was on the night of June 21st, 1876. This 

 evidently belongs to Class II., Pyrenomycetes, 

 Div. 1, Sphsericbcei, in the second tribe of Gaster- 

 omycetes. My readers will excuse these hard 

 names — I did not name them — but thus these 

 plants are classified into separate classes and 

 sections grouped together ; and yet, there 

 seems to be such a diversity of forms in the 

 same plants that, viewed at different periods, 

 they are as readily referred to one genus and 

 then to another; and yet it is well to have some 

 general knowledge of these insidous plants. 



Trietelia laxa belongs to the natural order of 

 Liliacese, the famous lily family. In shape it re- 

 sembles the Agapanihus or Lilium longiflorum, be- 

 ing trumpet shaped ; the flowers are from two to 

 four inches in length, and, at the mouth, from 

 one to two inches in diameter. They are borne 

 in clusters at the end of the stem , there are 

 from ten to fifty flowers in each stem, according 

 to size of bulb. I have often picked ones with 

 twenty to thirty flowers, all in bloom at once» 

 and with as many buds. The bulb is rather 

 small to bear such large flowers, but every one 

 knows that nearly all our finest flowers come 

 from very fine seed. The bulb is found from five 

 to six inches below the surface. 



TRIETELIA LAXA. 



BY W. C. L. DREW. 



That there are found in California many gems 

 of the first water in the floral line, is no new 

 information to the thousands of readers of the 

 Gardener's Monthly, therefore I will proceed, with- 

 out comment on this point, to describe one of 

 the very finest of them, and whose name heads 

 these Ihies. 



The leaves are few in number, generally two ; 

 are very narrow, about one-half inch wide, and 

 are from one to one and a half feet long; they 

 are of a dark green color and of a drooping 

 habit, often lying flat on the ground. 



The stem is long, small in circumference, gen- 

 erally about one-sixteenth inch only in diameter; 

 very rigid and brittle, being easily broken over, 

 but hard to separate ; is generally as straight as a 



