CALOCHORTUS VENUSTUS. 

 MARIPOSA LILY; BUTTER-FLY TULIP. 



NATURAL ORDER, LILTACE^, 



Calochortus VENUSTUS, Benlham. — Resembles Calochortus i.uteus : petals white or pale 

 lilac, with a more or less conspicuous reddish spot at top, a brownish-yellovv-bordered 

 centre, and a brownish base; gland large, oblong, usually densely hairy, and surrounded 

 by scattered hairs : capsule one to two and a half inches long. (Sereno Watson in Pro- 

 ceedings of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1879. See also Alphonso Wood 

 in Proceedings of Academy of Natural Sciences, of Philadelphia, 1868.) 



URSH, in his " Flora of North America," published in 

 18 1 4, gave us the first knowledge of this beautiful genus 

 of plants. In the preface he speaks of it as "a bulbous rush ; " 

 and in the body of the work it is described as a new genus, and 

 named by him Calochortus — from two Greek words signifying 

 "pretty grass." It must be remembered, however, that Pursh 

 himself was never beyond the Mississippi, where alone the 

 species forming this genus is found ; but he became possessed 

 of the specimens collected by Lewis and Clarke, in their celebrated 

 expedition across the continent in 1804-5, and he incorporated 

 the result of their labors in his work. In the case of this plant 

 he could, therefore, know it only as a dried specimen ; but even 

 in this unfavorable condition we see, by the pretty name he gave 

 it, how much its beauty struck him. But even in its fresh and 

 living state the species he described was not equal in beauty to 

 the one we now illustrate, which was discovered in southern 

 California by David Douglas, the collector to the Royal Hor- 

 ticultural Society of London, who sent seeds of it to that body, 

 which were raised in their garden about 1832, and described in 



('65) 



