496 Liliaccce Tulipa. 



paratory to opening, and which also produces leaves ; this bulb 

 exhausts its juices according as the flower advances towards its 

 end, and when that is reached, there is nothing left of it but 

 the withered envelopes, which themselves soon decay and dis- 

 appear : (2) the succeeding or replacing bulb, formed of very 

 fleshy closely-packed scales, in the centre of which the leaves 

 and flower-bud are in course of formation, and these are not 

 fully developed till the following year ; this bulb originates in 

 the axil of one of the outer scales of the mature bulb ; this, 

 then, represents the second generation: (3) on one side of the 

 last, and also in the axil of one of its outer scales, the bulb of 

 the third generation already begins to show itself; it is fleshy 

 and comparatively small, but enlarges in the course of the 

 Summer. This would be the succession bulb of the following 

 year, and would flower the third year, after having itself given 

 birth to two generations of bulbs. The duration of each bulb 

 is therefore three years, but it only flowers once. . The Tulip 

 is essentially monocarpic, and in the annual replanting, the 

 bulbs which are confided to the ground are never those whicli 

 have flowered in the Spring, but simply the succession bulbs 

 which were produced the preceding season. Besides the suc- 

 cession bulbs, which are in a measure the continuation of the 

 same individual, other bulbs are produced around the full- 

 grown bulb, but smaller and of a different shape, which we 

 might term propagating bulbs. These are the offsets, properly 

 so called, destined to live a separate and independent exist- 

 ence, and become so many distinct individuals. 



The botanist Kunth, in the first half of the present century, 

 enumerated thirty species of Tulip ; but subsequent authors are 

 far from accepting that number, some increasing it and others 

 restricting it. The consequence is a very much entangled 

 synonymy, and it is now almost impossible to clear up the 

 fundamental species. These great divergences of opinion are 

 due in the first place to similarity of the species, and then their 

 variability under cultivation, and lastly the facility with which 

 they intercross to form hybrids or fertile mules. All these 

 causes taken together explain the almost unlimited number 

 of varieties that exist in a wild or cultivated state, and the 

 almost imperceptible shades by which they pass from one into 

 the other. 



Mr. Baker estimates the cultivated species at seven, distin- 

 guished as follows :*' 



