OP AUTS AND SCIENCES. 127 



the petioles form a closed slieath about the peduncle, and only in 

 E. Hartwegi are they alternate instead of opposite. 



Tl.e auricles or appendages at the base of the inner petals are uni- 

 form and constant, so far as known, in each species where they occur, 

 though always greatly obscured in other than fresh flowers. Of the 

 eastern species, E. Americanmn is the only one with such special or- 

 gans, having a rather thickened auricle upon each side of the petal, 

 somewhat as in E. dens-canis. The western species, with the excep- 

 tion of E. HoweUii, have the inner petals appendaged with a trans- 

 verse crest of four more or less saccate gibbosities, the two inner the 

 more prominent, the outer forming lateral auricles, so that the crests 

 of the three petals when appressed to the ovary close completely over 

 the basal cavity of the perianth. These crests ditfer in some degree 

 in the different species, but usually not in such a wny as to make a de- 

 scription of the differences easy ; nor have they all been examined in 

 the fresh flower. 



The stamens show little that is specifically cliaracteristic. They are 

 in two unequal series, with more or less dilated filaments, the yellow, 

 white, or occasionally purple anthers varying in length under different 

 conditions, a moistened anther becoming very much longer than the 

 same when dry. The relative lengths of the style and stamens vary 

 with the age of the flower. The coherence or divergence of the stig- 

 mas appears to be in general a good sectional character. In all cases, 

 however, the stigmas are at first coherent, and where separation occurs 

 it may be more or less delayed after anthesis and more or less com- 

 plete. Even in species with persistently coherent stigmas it is proba- 

 ble that separation occasionally occurs. The form of the capsule, while 

 differing in the two grdiips, is essentially uniform iu each. In the 

 western species it varies much in length, in some species more acute 

 than in others, in some pioportionately wider. No marked differences 

 have been observed in tlie seeds. 



* Eastern species. Corni i^mnll (G to 9 lines lon^), oblong-ovate, often prop- 

 agatinp: by lengtliened offshoots, but also producing new cornis more or less 

 frequently at the base of the old: scapes low, 1 flowered : inner petals not 

 crested: capsule obovate (mostly 5 to 9 lines long). 



1- Offshoots produced from the base of the corm. 



1. E. Americanum, Ker. Leaves mottled: flowers yellow, often 

 tinged without with purple and finely dotted within ; segments 10 to 

 20 lines long, the iimer auricled near the base : style scarcely lobed 

 at the summit. — Bot. Mag. t. 1113; Bigelow, Med. Bot. t. 58; Bar- 

 ton, Fl. N. Amer. t. 33 ; Gray, Struct, and Syst. Bot., fig. 1247-1251 ; 



