170 CONSERVATIVE ORGANS. [LECT. IV. 



old bulb is completely exhausted, and the new 

 bulbs separated from it before the rudiments of 

 the next series are perceptible. The points of 

 union between the parent and its progeny are near 

 the basis of the bulb on both sides. On dissection, 

 the perfect bulb is found to consist of a mass of 

 cellular substance turgid with moist farinaceous 

 matter ; but it is not, as in the former species, per- 

 fectly homogeneous, one part being opaque, and 

 the other semitransparent. The vessels run lon- 

 gitudinally through the bulb, from the radical 

 plate to the part whence the foliage springs ; and, 

 in their dried up state, in conjunction with the 

 emptied cellular texture and the epidermis, give a 

 tough, spongy character to the exhausted bulb ; 

 which, at the time of the separation of the recent 

 bulbs, exhibits the appearance of a shrivelled 

 leathery bag, the roots having dropped from the 

 radical plate *. 



* Vide Plate 1. fig. 8, 9, 10, which represent the bulbs of 

 Colchicum autumnale, dug up in May, in different points of 

 view. Fig. 8. a. b. the recent bulbs (denuded so as to show 

 their true appearance) of an irregular Pear shape, being con- 

 siderably longer on the side opposite to that by which they are 

 attached to the old bulb, and terminating in c. c. a flattened 

 process ; on the inner and upper part of which, under a pro- 

 jection formed by the termination of the shorter side of the 

 bulb, is the radical plate, whence the roots protrude. It is 

 half way above this plate, on the one side, and behind the 

 flattened process, on the other, that the new bulbs are formed. 



d. The 



