292 TRANSACTIONS OF THE [Sess. lxxxii 



I have given above as the possession of all these plants 

 seem to me to be adequate for the diagnosis of one, and 

 what I am tempted to do is to use these characters as 

 the differentiating ones of Nomocharis, taking the three 

 series arranged above as sections of it, naming tliem, 

 1, Oxypetala; 2, Eunomocharis ; 3, Ecristata. By this 

 procedure we should emphasise the fact that we have a 

 phyletic series that diverged from a common ancestry 

 along with Fritillaria proper, and with that remarkable 

 arrested branch which is conveniently placed because of 

 lack of further evolution of its form in Fritillaria as 

 F. imjjeonalis. I have no difficulty about combining in 

 one genus the forms of series 2 and 3 and about keeping 

 it distinct from Fritillaria. I am more hesitant about the 

 right treatment of series 1, for its members undoubtedly 

 in habit — slender plants with stem not rooting above bulb, 

 leaves long linear solitary at nodes, solitary terminal more 

 or less drooping flower — recall strongly Fritillaria. But it 

 would not be so natural an arrangement, it seems to me, 

 to place series 1 in Fritillaria and to treat the other two 

 series as Nomocharis. And so I decide to jdeld to tempta- 

 tion and to state the view that the best expression of our 

 present knowledge of these forms of which I have been 

 speaking is to widen the limits of Nomocharis to the 

 extent of including them all within it, arranging them in 

 the series with the names already given and distinguished 

 by the characters mentioned. 



The decision enables me to name the several species to 

 which in previous pages I have referred under collector's 

 numVjers, and it requires me also to give a revised definition 

 of the genus Nomocharis as follows : — 



Nomocliaris. (Revised Character.) 

 Perianth deciduous, more or less open ; segments sub- 

 equal or dissimilar, lanceolate or oval or almost orbicular 

 more or less acuminate, obscurely fimbriate at apex else- 

 where entire or variously fringed, more or less spreading ; 

 calycine eglandular; petaline with a double basal 

 glandular area half on each side of midrib crested or 

 fringed or not. Stamens 6 slightly adhering to base of 

 perianth-segments or free ; filaments flattened, thread-like 



