800 TRANSACTIONS OF THE [Sess. lxxxh 



to some considerable development in Western China — and 

 be it noted alongside of a similar development of true 

 Fritillciria with the globose bulb formed of rounded, some- 

 what separate scale-leaves, and with the campanulate 

 perianth of segments all bearing a larger or smaller median 

 nectary — F. cirrhosa, F. decussafa, F. Delavayi are illustra- 

 tions. We may count upon more of both groups being 

 discovered, showing perhaps other modifications into which 

 the type has passed. Meanwhile, as I had to name the 

 plants collected by George Forrest and by Kingdon Ward, 

 I have endeavoured to sift the relationship of forms as we 

 know them. 



In 1898 Franchet translated Fritillaria lophoplcora into 

 Lilium lophophorum, because " it has so much in common 

 with Lilium oxypetalum, Baker, and L. apertum, Franch., 

 that it is impossible to place it in a different genus. The 

 bulb, the form of perianth, the dorsifixed versatile anthers 

 are more characters of Lilium than of Fritillaria — a genus 

 which cannot be precisely defined at the present time 

 unless one restricts it to species with a campanulate corolla 

 of the tjq^e of that in F. Meleagris, and especially to those 

 in wliich the style is trifid." I agree with Franchet, except 

 that his argument leads me not to Lilium but to a new 

 genus or to Nomocharis, qualifying this statement, however, 

 by saying that I have not had opportunity of examining 

 Lilium apertum, which I take to be a plant not unlike 

 L. oxypetabtm, Baker, seeing that Franchet had previously 

 thought it was this species. 



