284 TRANSACTIONS OF THE [Sess. lxxxu 



The Scaly Bulb. — The elongated bulb with more or less 

 ovate-lanceolate pointed scale-leaves of Nomocharis is very 

 different in form from the short somewhat globose bulb 

 with rounded tuberous scale-leaves of typical Fritillaria. 

 It approaches somewhat the form found in Lilium, par- 

 ticularly that of L. polyphyllum as represented by Elwes.^ 

 It is not confined to Nomocharis outside Lilium. In 1839 

 Royle "^ briefly described under the name Fritillaria oxy- 

 petala a W. Himalayan plant which, like as it is in some 

 features to the Fritillarias of previous descriptions, differs 

 in certain obvious characters, and of these the bulb-form is 

 one. The bulb if not quite the same as that of Nomocharis 

 — there are many more and narrower shorter scales which 

 are not so connivent at the top but more open — is yet 

 cast on the same mould and is v^erj' different from what 

 is found in Eiifritillaria. Baker ^ recognised the difierence, 

 and taking the bulb to be more lilioid than fritillarioid, he 

 renamed the plant Lilium oxypetalum, Baker. Under 

 this name Elwes* figured the plant. Sir Joseph Hooker^ 

 brings back the plant into Fritillaria and differentiates a 

 new species, F. StracJieyi, Hook. f. (W. Himalaya), with the 

 same form of bulb. This same form of bulb we meet with 

 also in Fritillaria lophophora, Franch.*' (N.E. Yunnan and 

 W. Szechwan), F. jiavida, Rendle' (S.W. Tibet), Ward sp. 

 No. 758 8 (S.E. Tibet), Ward sp. Nos. 741, 813 » (S.E. Tibet). 

 In what follows I shall use the term Oxypetala for this 

 group of fritillaries from the N.W. and W. Himalaj^a, S.E. 

 Tibet, and W. China, whicli in their bulb-form are like 

 Nomocharis — so like, indeed, as to negate the value of 

 the bulb-form as a difi'erential character of that genus. 



1 must not omit to mention a character of the stem in 

 Nomocharis which may have phyletic significance. In all 

 the species I have seen the stem shortly above the bulb 



J Elwe.s, Monogr. Lil. (1880), t. 48. 



2 Royk^ Illustr. Bot. Hiiiial., i (1839), 388. 



^ Baker in Journ. Linn. Sue, xiv (iHTrj), 234. 

 ^ Elwes, MoiHjpr. Lil. (1880), t. 5. 



6 Hook, f., Fl. Brit. Iii<l., vi (1892), 352. 



8 Francliet in .Toiirn. de Bot., v (1891), 153. 



7 Renflle in Journ. of Bot., xliv (1906), 45. 



* Probably a new species of Nomocharis of the Oxypetala series 

 (seep. 291).' 



^ Named Nomochoris JFardii on ji. 297. 



