62 The Botanical Gazette. [February, 
The number of runners varies from one to three in the 
plants examined, and they grow in different directions. 
These runners are from two to nine inches long, so that if 
they grew vertically the bulb might be formed at the depth 
of the flowering bulbs,.but they run obliquely more frequently 
than vertically thus leaving the secondary bulbs nearer the 
surface than the mature ones. The secondary bulb, after 
reaching the depth of the flowering bulb, does not always 
blossom the next spring, for bulbs with six inches of soil 
above them have been found with one leaf each (fig. 8). 
On May 30th the leaves had in most cases disappeared 80 
that it was with difficulty that a few plants with fruit and de- 
cayed leaves were secured, while the soil was filled with the 
fleshy runners and newly formed secondary bulbs. These 
runners were often found on the surface of the soil, protected 
by the mulching of leaves. In such cases the new bulb is but 
very little, if at all, deeper in the soil than the parent. 
The flesh of the mature bulb is firm and white, and leaves 
a white coating of starch on a knife with which it has beet 
cut. When crushed between the fingers, it becomes sticky 
as it dries. The starch grains are about half the size of those 
of the potato, measuring from .o10™™ to .042™™ in length 
and from .007™ to .035™" in breadth. The mature bulbs 
do not produce runners. 
Plants frequently grow so close together that they indent 
each other, and adhere strongly one to the other, but no break 
in the skin at the point of contact was seen although look 
for carefully. These clusters of bulbs are formed by buds 
which the mature bulb sends off from its base as was seen 0M 
November 4th, and in a very large one on November oth. 
There was no runner present, but in other respects the bud 
corresponds to a secondary bulb, and comes to maturity 
close contact with the parent. This budding is carried of 
for an indefinite period, two buds of different sizes sometime 
being formed on the same bulb. 
Plants examined in July, on September 18th, and on Oc- 
tober 30th, showed no new developments except that the U™ 
ners and the parent bulb had both disappeared save traces : 
- 
the epidermis. 
On November 1st, I examined, without a lens, a numbef . 
small buibs which had been taken a couple of days before 
from just below the surface of the soil, in the same place 
