84 NOTES ON LILIES 



flowers, foliage, and liabit, excepting bulbs, arc precisely similar. It is 

 possible that a long course of culture by the Dutch florists may have 

 induced this free production of oft'sets or bulblets at the partial 

 expense of flowers, which are rarely produced, but on this point 

 more information is desirable. The form of the scales of Lily bulbs 

 varies from the ovate or bluntly lance-shaped scales of Candidum, 

 Aurafinn, Spcciosum, and LonijijJnrnv}, all representatives of what 

 may be called the typical or ordinaiy ovoid Lily bulb, so often 

 figured in botanical books, through a series of bulbs, having more or 

 less fiddle-shaped or constricted scales, as is the case in Leichtlinn, 

 Croccum and its variety Croceum Aurantlacnm, Concohr and its 

 varieties, Calloston, Tenuifolium, and also in Broivnii. Bulbs having 

 broad pandurlform scales slide into the thick, naiTOW-scaled bulbs of 

 the American Lilies, with distinctly jointed scales, through the 

 jointed form of the European Davuricum, to which we have already 

 directed attention. The bulbs of most of the American Lilies of the 

 Superhum type are but one-jointed, and this led me to think that, 

 instead of the leaf having been shed from the thickened petiole, as 

 is so evident in Ccdeshcei, leaving a scar, the diminished leaf itself 

 had become bulboid in like manner with the petiole. This view, 

 however, does not seem to hold good, since in Davuricum it is 

 nothing uncommon to find some scales with two joints, and in the 

 little American Parvum three or even four joints are not uncommon. 

 I am particular in pointing out this jointing because I can find so 

 little written on this point, which is one of much interest to the 

 teretologist and structural botanist. The first reference I can find 

 respecting the articulated scales of Lily bulbs is in the " Proceedings 

 of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia,^' for 1876, 

 p. 412, where it is recorded that " Mr. Thomas Meehan remarked 

 that some bulbs of L. Pardalinum, received last spring from Dr. 

 W. P. Gibbons, had the scales articulated in the middle. The upper 

 portion of the jointed scale fell off" easily at the slightest touch, giving 

 the blunt ends of the remaining portion the appearance of grains of 

 Indian corn as they were arranged along the rhizome. Dr. H. N. 

 Bolander has since informed him that it is a common characteristic 

 of the species. It does not, however, appear to have been noticed 

 by monographers of this genus. He had since found that the eastern 

 Superhum had the same character, it was, however, by no means 

 regular. Some bulbs would have a large number of reticulated 

 scales, while others had but a few here and there, and they vv^ere as 

 likely to be found among the inner as the outer scales. The scales 

 of Lily bulbs were but the dilated and thickened bases of -ordinary 

 leaves. There were no articulations in the normal leaves, and it 

 was diflicult to trace any morphological relationship in these scale 

 joints. 



