Nov. 1903.] BOTANICAL SOCIETY OF EDINBURGH 423 



SO as to form a small compact cone, erect by the side of 

 the pedicel, with its apex closely applied to the centre of 

 the base of the rootstock. 



In young plants of D. calycina, with stem and leaves 

 developed, but without flowers, the bulbs of last year are 

 seen brown and shrivelled, while from the bottom of 

 some a new axis of white living tissue has been sent straight 

 down, in one instance for half an inch below the base of 

 the bulb. From near the margin of the flat lower end of 

 the rootstock, at this part copiously furnished with strong 

 smooth roots, a stout process has been pushed through the 

 bottom of the old bulb, which is now a mere husk, and 

 continued downwards as a new axis, clavate like that from 

 which it springs, and bearing attached to its lower truncate 

 extremity a small globular body, the new bulb.^ It bears 

 on its surface a few acute scales like the old rootstock, but 

 these point downwards, and no roots are present on the 

 process. The young bulb at its end is quite globular, and 

 though almost touching its peduncle, the constriction 

 between the two passes completely round, leaving only a 

 narrow connecting pedicel. A few scales are seen pro- 

 jecting from the very narrow sinus between, and in the 

 light of what has been seen in D. criithrorhiza and 

 D. stolonifera, a closer examination of the few specimens 

 available shows that these are attached, not to the clavate 

 peduncle on which the small bulb is borne, but to the bulb 

 itself, and that other scales .are present on one side of the 

 bulb, few in number, but sufficient to show the passage 

 from those directed downwards through the horizontal to 

 the upward direction, as seen more distinctly in the larger 

 bulbs of the rosette-forms. The upper shrivelled Iwlbs, 

 when there is more than one present, are seen as a band 

 or ferrule of wrinkled brown tissue encircling the white 

 shaft of the rootstock, on which they are quite loose and 

 movable. In another plant of this species a brown and 

 dead bulb was found on being cut open to be a mere shell, 



1 This is not :i rootstock, though similar in shape, differing as it does 

 in origin and in function, and the term 'pro-bulb' would be more 

 appropriately applied to it than, as first suggested, to the base of the 

 rootstock bearing the stem. It is significant that, while tlie downward 

 bud from the rootstock takes its oritiiu laterally, the bulb itself keeps a 

 central and permanent position in relation to the axis of the plant. 



