74 KANSAS ACADEMY OF SCIENCE. 
why the yellow Erythronium seldom blooms the second season after being trans- 
planted to a garden. 
In Erythronium albidum we notice a similar feature of the sterile forms. 
However, in this species | have never found more than two offshoots to spring 
from each corm, and I have examined hundreds. Furthermore, the runners of 
E. albidum are first directed downward at an angle and then curve upward, 
finally planting the new corms, developed at the ends of the runners, at a dis- 
tance of three to eight inches from the parent corm. This doubling of corms 
will soon mat a woodland hill slope. Seldom, however, will more than a single 
offshoot from a flowering corm be found; and then its displacement is not more 
than an inch or two, and most frequently is only the merest fraction of an inch, 
scarcely rupturing the old corm coat. In fact, the new corm for next year’s 
growth is generally developed right at the base and to one side of the old corm. 
Because of this fact the corms in both albidum and americanum are seldom 
found in an erect position in the soil, but rather set at an angle, and even almost 
horizontal at times. 
And now what is the meaning of all this? When, if ever, do these thousands 
of one-leaved dog-tooth violets and yellow adder-tongues bloom? What a glo- 
rious sight it would be if that whole shaded hill slope bordering the woodland 
creek should some spring day take a notion to bloom forth, each of the thousands 
of corms bearing its nodding bell of pink and white; or if that old Ohio ravine 
should just for one May day be a blaze of golden adder-tongues! Such thoughts 
would come to us in our boyhood days as we roamed those ravines in early spring 
for treasures for our herbariums, but no hopes for their realization had ever been 
seriously entertained, and we were content to search for the few stars in the fields 
of mottled green, which found, with what diligence did we ply the collector’s 
trowel lest we should be so luckless as to cut off the delicate stem ere the deeply 
buried coveted corm was reached! But the puzzle of it all remained unsolved 
until we reached Kansas soil. Imagine our delight, then, when in the spring of 
1890 we indeed did behold the hilltops ablaze with thousands of Erythroniums. 
What our boyhood dreams had visioned, and cool reason had denied as impos- 
sible, was here indeed a reality. Every plant bore a flower. Could this be our 
old friend, the Erythronium albidum of former days, here in Kansas under a 
clearer sky seeking a freer life? We thought not, and this Academy has already 
heard its announcement as Erythronium mesochoreum, a new species, at the 
Ottawa meeting, in 1891. . 
What interests us to-day is the fact that this species opens up the secret of 
propagation and flowering in the Erythroniums. Seeking out some of the one- 
leaved, flowerless forms (for indeed they will have to be sought for), and remov- 
ing them with the utmost care from the ground, you will fail to find on them any 
runners whatever. Nor do the flowering forms bear runners or offsets. Instead, 
the new corms are developed at the base, a little to one side, and yet within the 
fold of the old corm. Furthermore, a well-established flowering plant will have 
a succession of corms within corms to the number of three or even four or five. 
This difference in the corm structure ought to account for the difference in flower- 
ing habits of the several species, and so it does. 
But how came ‘this difference in structure ? We observed in both E. ameri- 
canum and EK. albidum that sometimes the flowering corms also gave rise to run- 
ners with secondary corms at their extremities. Such accidents in growth can 
only be explained by environment. The corms of E. americanum and E. al- 
bidum, growing in the easily yielding leaf-mold, find no difficulty in producing 
offshoots; and so long as such is their condition and position, they continue to 
