BRODLEA COCCINEA. SCARLET CALIFORNIA-HYACINTH. 39 



"In referring It to Bi'odicra, we may venture to discard the 

 objectionable double-headed name given by the stage-driver, 

 Mr. Burk (who showed the plant to Professor Wood), 'In affec- 

 tion for his lltde daughter.' " Thus It was renamed Brodicea 

 coccinca. Double-headed names, objectionable as they may be, 

 are not uncommon In botany ; and of this the genus Asa-grcra, 

 established by Lindley In commemoration of Dr. Gray, is an 

 illustrious example. 



As a matter of interest to the botanical student. It may be here 

 noted that it is often difficult to fix distinguishing characters for 

 many genera of Liliaceous plants. The theoretical type is that 

 the verticils are on the plan of three. The perianth or flower 

 cup is composed of what in most flowers would be a calyx of 

 three leaves, and a three-petaled corolla. In Brodicsa the two 

 verticils are under but one influence, and they are so nearly 

 alike that they seem as If of one verticil of six portions. But the 

 stamlnate verticils have been separately Influenced, and the lower 

 set of three have taken on more the form of additional petals 

 than of ordinary stamens. Indeed, there are but three perfect 

 stamens ; the other three are represented by the little crown 

 around them. It is on the greater or less degree of develop- 

 ment of this outer whorl — the third in the floral series — that 

 botanists distinorulsh orenera in some cases. If this set of three 

 appeared like stamens, only lacking the anthers, it would be 

 Leucocoiyne ; with the apex a little flattened out, a Brodicea 

 proper; with true petal-like processes, a Dichclostemina ; with 

 these petalold processes cleft, making a slx-lobed crown, a 

 Stropholirioji ; or reduced to broad scales, with no semblance of 

 a stamen remaining, a Brevooiiia. But whatever value these 

 particulars may have in systemadc botany, these points show an 

 interesting progress In the development of one form to another 

 that few plants will show so well. 



As for the great beauty of the plant in its native locations, no 

 better picture could be painted than that by Mr. James \'ick, 

 who made a close acquaintance with it in Its mountain home. 

 He says: "It is one of the most curious and Interesting ot Call- 



