MAY 63 



curious point in the botanical structure of the tulip. 

 The flower of this year springs from a bulb that 

 seems simple and compact, but within that bulb 

 another bulb is formed (or more than one) in the 

 axils of the scales, which will be the flowering bulb 

 of next year; and within that is, again, another 

 bulbil, which will be the flowering bulb of the year 

 after next ; so that each bulb lives three years, and 

 no more, yet each, as it comes to maturity, contains 

 within itself other formed bulbs for two years to come. 

 Madame de Genlis, who wrote on almost every sub- 

 ject in the beginning of the century, carries this still 

 further, and says that in October there will be found 

 at the base of the bulb the entire tulip flower which 

 will appear aboveground in April, with stem, petals, 

 stamens, pistil, ovary, and seeds; but Madame de 

 Genlis is not to be trusted in her botany or her facts. 

 But the structure of the spring bulb which I have 

 mentioned is a certain fact, and, as far as I know, this 

 structure is unique and confined to the tulips, though 

 there is something very analogous to it in the structure 

 of ferns. If a fern, of which the fronds of this year 

 are fully developed, is examined (in a large fern, such as 

 the Struthiopteris or Felix mas, it can be seen very 

 easily), the fronds of this year form the fine outside 

 crown, but inside that there is an inner crown of fronds 



