98 



NOTES ON LILIES 



bulbs, but all fused together on the old root- stock. I have seen 

 clumps of the common white and orange Lilies dug up fully 2 feet 

 in diameter, these being formed of flowering bulbs, old clustered 

 masses of scales, and offsets of all sizes. 



L. Washingtonianinn. This beautiful Lily is found on the Sierra 

 Nevada, at an altitude of 5000 to 6000 feet, and during the winter 

 months its bulbs are frequently covered with J 5 to 20 feet of snow. 

 Mr. Baker describes its bulbs as being " oblique, white, sub-rhizo- 

 matous, with small, lance-shaped scales," and judging from about 

 1200 imported bulbs of this plant in splendid condition which I saw 

 in November last, that description is accurate. The oblique and 

 elongated habit of growth was well shown in those bulbs, two forms 



L. Washingtonianum (America, Sierra Nevada), rather more than one-third natural 

 size ; imported bulbs. The smaller figure one-fifth natural size. 



of which are represented in the engravings, one of a full-sized old 

 bulb, these being 6 to 8 inches in length. Even the plump, short, 

 young, imported bulbs have an oblique appearance, as in the smaller 

 figure, but this habit of growth becomes changed under our garden 

 culture, where the bulbs assume the ordinary ovoid type of growth. 

 L. Washingtonianum Purpurf-um. The Lily now grown in gardens 

 as Purpureum* has a rounder, plumper bulb of a yellowish- white colour, 

 shaded with brown, and its habitat is different to that of Washing- 

 tonianum proper, since it is found at a lower altitude in the Yosemite 

 valley, ff in a climate of perpetual spring." It is by some called 

 Washingtonianum, " Eel River variety," since it is tolerably abundant 

 in the moist valley of that stream ; its umbellate style of flowering may 

 serve to distinguish it from the type. The bulb-growth, although very 



* The bulb of Purpureum is only very slightly oblique and elongated, it might be 

 termed ovoid, slightly oblique. Its scales are few compared with those of Washing- 

 tonianum, of a coarser texture, dirtier in colour, thicker, broader, and with a distinct 

 keel on the lowest scale near its insertion ; the whole bulb is much smaller. 



