170 ANDROSTEPHIUM VIOLACEUM.—CROWNED LILY. 
flower. The plant had been collected by others some little time 
before, but its place in the botanical system had not been accu- 
rately determined. At any rate, our knowledge of it is but of 
comparatively recent date, and even yet we do not know much 
of its habits or behavior, or what may be its contribution to the 
general aspects of nature in the places where it is found, for few 
collectors seem to have met with it, and those fortunate ones 
have not been able to tell anything materially of its local history. 
This and allied Liliaceous plants are very interesting, botani- 
cally, as proving clearer than many other tribes do, the great 
unity of nature. The roots, the leaves, the stems, flowers and 
general structure of one species are so closely related to those of 
another, that it is almost impossible to fix on any certain and 
definite line whereby to divide them; and we can learn among 
these plants, perhaps better than among many others, that what 
we call genus, though a natural and not an artificial arrangement, 
as much so as day is distinct from night, yet runs so closely 
and insensibly into others that we are often justified in believing 
that the one has grown out of, or has been in some way con- 
nected with the other. Now, in the present case, its first observ- 
ers seem to have regarded it as a AZ//a, a genus established by 
Cavanilles, a Spanish botanist, in 1793; but the “filaments united 
’ 
into a crown at the throat of the tube,” in such a conspicuous 
way, and as well shown by our artist in the expanded flower, 
seemed to Dr. Torrey to be grounds for forming for it a new 
genus. But how slight this distinction is may be inferred from a 
remark by Dr. C. C. Parry, in his “Botanical Observations in 
Southern Utah,” published in the 9th volume of the “American 
Naturalist,” when, referring to a species of A/7//a, found there, he 
says, “which exhibits an equally well-marked corona (crown) 
sub-tending the stamens, thus apparently invalidating the dis- 
tinctions which have been relied on for separating the allied 
genera of MZi//cz.”’ As to one of these “ genera of the sub-tribe 
Afillee,’ Dr. Torrey himself remarks, while establishing the 
genus, “the Mexican genus Lessera most resembles this, but it 
