406 Observations on the Genus Hemerocallis. 



away to make room for more gaudy or newer favorites, have taken 

 refuge in the neglected corner, or sprung up with the tenacity of 

 vital action in the pasture grounds. Lingering in some unseemly 

 tuft of torn foliage and tall flower-stem, before the door of the 

 farm-house, one perchance may see the poor outcast, of lawny 

 hue, {H. fulva ) so seldom seen in better company. This indi- 

 vidual species is said not to be unpalatable to cattle, and per- 

 haps might supply on depauperated soils one form of food. In 

 a section of country, rich in pasturage, where ordinary pains are 

 taken, such resources may not be needed; yet the suggestion 

 perhaps might elicit experiment. Its abundance of tuberous- 

 shaped roots are easily divisible, and its propensity to spread to 

 a mischievous degree in the flower-border is well known. 



But, rejected as may be //emerocallis fulva, who can pass 

 without a tribute to beauty the elegant co-species in H. flava.'' 

 An early visitant of summer, its golden blossoms, slightly bend- 

 ing around a graceful stalk, just rising from a delicate pale green 

 foliage, renders it no mean subject of the florist's care. We 

 have often admired its intrinsic loveliness when grouped amid 

 other plants to form a bouquet, or to help fill a vase for the orna- 

 ment of the centre-table. Perhaps a happy arrangement from 

 feminine hands added not a little to the effect. For our own 

 part, we always welcome it, whether in the flower-vase or amid 

 the more costly and attractive liliaceous plants — the golden day 

 lily of a boreal clime! 



Next we have in interest the i/emerocallis disticha, or fan- 

 leaved day lily of China, whose singularly flattened foliage, rising 

 so regularly and straight from the crown of the root just below 

 the soil, is not an unapt miniature of some infant palm. This 

 species is, however, only met with in the collection of the curi- 

 ous, or in the garden of the botanist; because little known, and 

 unattractive on account of its copper-colored flowers. The pre- 

 vailing taste of the day is the rather for brilliancy of perianth and 

 petal than for curiously formed foliage. We have ventured, how- 

 ever, to give it a passing remark, as the introduction to observa- 

 tions on a variety with double flowers, claiming kindred and near 

 affinity with itself as the veritable original species. We now re- 

 fer to i/emerocallis disticha, flore pleno, known to us for seve- 

 ral years and under our cultivation, which for a series of seasons 

 has produced three or more very tall, strong and bold stems, on 

 which the double perianths have slowly expanded one by one for 

 several weeks' duration. 



The minute examination of full or double flowers, (as they are 

 called, in the language of florists,) is of considerable interest, as 

 developing the results of physiological structure in the presence, 

 absence, abortion or abnormal variation of individual organs. 

 Such an examination of a flower of the last named variety we 



