170 ANDROSTEPHIUM VIOLACEUM. CROWNED LILY. 



flower. The plant had been collected by others some little time 

 before, but its place in the botanical system had not been accu- 

 rately determined. At any rate, our knowledge of it is but of 

 comparatively recent date, and even yet we do not know much 

 of its habits or behavior, or what may be its contribution to the 

 general aspects of nature in the places where it is found, for few 

 collectors seem to have met with it, and those fortunate ones 

 have not been able to tell anything materially of its local history. 

 This and allied Liliaceous plants are very interesting, botani- 

 cally, as proving clearer than many other tribes do, the great 

 unity of nature. The roots, the leaves, the stems, flowers and 

 general structure of one species are so closely related to those of 

 another, that it is almost impossible to fix on any certain and 

 definite line whereby to divide them ; and we can learn among 

 these plants, perhaps better than among many others, that what 

 we call genus, though a natural and not an artificial arrangement, 

 as much so as day is distinct from night, yet runs so closely 

 and insensibly into others that we are often justified in believing 

 that the one has grown out of, or has been in some way con- 

 nected with the other. Now, in the present case, its first observ- 

 ers seem to have regarded it as a Milia, a genus established by 

 Cavanilles, a Spanish botanist, in 1793 ; but the "filaments united 

 into a crown at the throat of the tube," in such a conspicuous 

 way, and as well shown by our artist in the expanded flower, 

 seemed to Dr. Torrey to be grounds for forming for it a new 

 genus. But how slight this distinction is may be inferred from a 

 remark by Dr. C. C. Parry, in his "Botanical Observations in 

 Southern Utah," published in the 9th volume of the "American 

 Naturalist," when, referring to a species of Milla, found there, he 

 says, "which exhibits an equally well-marked corona (crown) 

 sub-tending the stamens, thus apparently invalidating the dis- 

 tinctions which have been relied on for separating the allied 

 genera of Millea:^ As to one of these " genera of the sub-tribe 

 MillecB^' Dr. Torrey himself remarks, while establishing the 

 genus, " the Mexican genus Bcssera most resembles this, but it 



