On the development of the bulb of the adder’s-tongue. 
FREDERICK H. BLODGETT. 
WITH PLATES VII AND VIII, 
Hundreds of small plants of the adder’s-tongue, or spring 
lily (Erythrontum Americanum Ker.) are found in the spring 
with the bulbs less than five inches below the surface of the 
soil, each bearing a single leaf and no flowers, while com- 
paratively few plants bearing two leaves and a flower each are 
found, and bulbs of these are at depths varying from five to 
nine inches. 
The question has been raised as to the method by which 
the mature bulbs reach their great depth. 
Early in March, 1893, I helped to fill a window box with 
surface mold taken from the woods, containing small bulbs of 
the Erythronium, apparently seedlings. These bulbs, which 
were found less than three inches from the surface of the 
ground, developed each its single leaf (fig. 1), which died 
down in a month or so. When the earth was removed from 
the box to make room for other plants, the bulbs were found 
to have developed ruriners with bulb-like thickenings at the 
: Having thus gained a clue as to the way in 
which the bulb of a flower-producing plant is formed at the 
depth at which it is found, many other plants were examined 
in Various stages of development. The bulbs of the plants 
which produced flowers this year are called flowering bulbs in 
these notes, in distinction from those of the younger plants 
Which are termed seedlings or secondary bulbs according to 
size and age. 
The runners start from the bottom of the bulb, but vary 
both in length and direction of growth, being from two to 
nine inches long, and ranging from perpendicular to nearly 
°F quite horizontal (figs. 2-5). As the supply of nourishment 
in the parent bulb is exhausted, the tip of the runner thickens 
into a Secondary bulb, which sends out rootlets from the up- 
s Part (fig. 11), and then the runner is absorbed, leaving, 
‘ss the cases examined, nothing but a dry and empty husk of 
© parent bulb and runner. ‘These secondary bulbs later in 
‘ne re lose their fleshy rootlets from the upper part of 
© bulb and send out the fibrous roots from the base. 
