136 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



Description. — A small glabrous evergreen perennial. Roots fibrous. Stems 

 annual, smooth, round, arising in autumn, bearing a small tuft of leaves during 

 the winter. Flower-stems erect or ziscending, from 2 inches (my plants) to 8 

 inches (Britton description) high, leafy, simple or branched. Leaves alternate, 

 glabrous, flat, fleshy, sessile, shortly spurred ; the basal ones spathulate, bluntly 

 pointed, tapered below, J inch by J inch or more ; the upper lintar-lanceolate, 

 rather acute, J inch by J inch (in my plants), | inch to i inch by J inch (Britton). 



Fig. 70. — 5. mellitulum Rose. 



Inflorescence a terminal 2-3-branched cyme, i inch (to 2 inches) across. Buds 

 ovate-lanceolate, ribbed. Flowers white, J inch across. Sepals green, leaf-like, 

 long, linear, rather acute, slightly unequal, slightly spurred, separate nearly to 

 the base. Petals wide-sprea&ng in the upper part, narrowly lanceolate (to linear 

 oblanceolate — Britton), acute, a little longer than the sepals, J inch long, white, 

 grooved. Stamens spreading, slightly shorter than the petals, filaments pink, 

 anthers purple. Carpels slender, erect, shorter than the stamens, pink. 



Flowers August. Not hardy. 

 Habitat. — Mountains of New Mexico. 



My specimens, which were received from the Smithsonian Insti- 

 tution, did not grow freely, nor did some of them which were cultivated 



