22 



ticularly large one they drew "cuts" to see who should have it. 

 The other boy got it, ate it and became sick and died that night. 

 Several similar eases gave it the name of "poison B6go". There 

 is no other poisonous bulb in Utah but the two species of Zygade- 

 denus that could have caused the trouble, and Z. venenosus is out 

 of the question because it grows only in meadows with us, though 

 farther north where the humidity is greater it has the habit of 

 the other. Piper refers to Z. veuenosus, but none but a botanist 

 can tell them apart. 



In Torr. Bull. 30 272 Eydberg, in his usual careless way, at- 

 tempts to segregate sections of tins genus into three genera and 

 without any acknowledgment of the fact that these distinctions 

 were known before he was born. He makes Toxicoscordion differ 

 from Zygadenus proper (which he confines to Z. glaberr irons) in 

 having a tunicated bulb instead of an elongated rootst«»ck, in hav- 

 ing a free and not ad n ate corolla, and in having a single obovate 

 to half-round gland. Anticlea he separates on the V-shaped gland 



and adnate ovary, it also has the tunicated bulb of Toxicoscordion. 

 Now an examination of the genus shows that its species fall natur- 

 ally into two rather well defined groups (shading into eachother), 

 the large and white flowered (often with a tinge of blue) forms 

 with twin or V-shaped single gland which is morphologically a u- 

 nion of two glands at the lower edges, and the small yellow-flow- 

 ered forms with a single obovate to oblong gland. The white-flow- 

 ered forms all have a rootstock, but it is elongated only in Z. gla- 

 berrimus. The yellow-flowered forms are without a rootstock or a 

 mere rudiment. Eydberg ignores these manifest facts arid unites 

 Z. Fremontii with the yellow flowered forms because it has a free 

 ovary, that is, because the corolla segments are split to the base 

 as is the case with the others. A critical examination of the gland 

 of Z. Fromontii shows that it belongs with the V-shaped class al- 

 though the gland is usually so imperfect that it is a mere green- 

 ish baud around the top of the claw, but whenever it is developed 

 at all there are two centers, one on each side of the midrib, where 

 it is the most pronounced. The claws of the yellow-flowered 

 forms are so narrow that there is no room for two well defined 

 glands and thus are crowded together till the lower edges coalesce 

 on the inner margins, and because they are set obliquely, they 

 form the V-shaped compound gland. In the small flowered forms 

 of the white-flowered group we finb the gland often obscure in 

 Greene's Z, porrifolius (which is the same as Z. virescens and only 

 i extreme form of Z. elegans). The small flowered forms of Z. 

 Premontii have a yellowish shade to the flowers, and Z. chloran- 



