WESTERN ER YTHRONIUM. 



251 



develop the stem and leaves, during the 

 summer a new bulb forms by its side, 

 and by autumn the old bulb will have 

 shrunk to a hard knotty scar, attached 

 on one side to the new bulb, and on 

 the other to a chain of like scars, which 

 form a pseudo-rhizome representing the 

 growth of preceding years. The fibrous 

 roots nourishing the plant are produced 

 at the base of the bulb of last year, so 

 that the rhizome has no connection 

 whatever with the life of the plant. The 

 bulb of E. montanum travels in a circle, 

 and I have seen cases where the rhizome 

 was in a perfect spiral of two turns show- 

 ing eight or ten years' growth. E.Hart- 

 wegiih the only Western species which 

 produces offsets. It produces a number 

 of runners from the base of the old bulb, 

 and at the end of each of these a new 

 bulbforms; itproduces at the sametime 

 one large new bulb by the side of the old, 

 as with other kinds. In other Western 

 species offsets are occasionally formed 

 within the sheath of the bulb, but pro- 

 bably only when it is in some way in- 

 jured, and in any case seldom. 



The leaves of E. grand i- 



Leaf Characters. „ _ 



y/orum, E. purpurascens, 

 and E. montanum are readily recognis- 

 able: in the first two they have no mot- 

 tling, and in the last they are unmottled 

 with a cordate base. Other species have 

 leaf characters which a keen-eyed gar- 

 dener will learn, but which cannot be 

 clearly conveyed in words, and in the 

 same way some species have mottlings 

 which are distinctive as learned in the 

 garden, but are not easily described. 



Watson's descriptions 



Natural Variation. . • 1 1 



convey the idea that 



there is a material difference between 

 the size of flower and height of stem of 

 different species, but, with one excep- 

 tion, I do not find this to be true. The 

 herbarium worker cannot safely make 

 allowance for those differences which 

 are due to soil or aspect, nor can he tell 

 whether his dried specimens are really 

 an average of the species in its normal 

 state. In the same species there may be 

 a difference (due to soil and exposure) of 

 3 00 or 400 per cent, in the size of plant 

 and flower and the number of blooms. 

 In nearly every instance ourErythroni- 

 ums are wild in brushy or wooded re- 

 gions and in uncultivated areas, where, 

 during our dry summers, brush or forest 

 fires are common. Before a fire I have 

 often seen E. californicum growing in 

 brush lands to a height of 6 or 8 inches 

 with but a single flower ; after a fire it 

 may be 16 inches or as much as 2 feet 

 high, with from four to sixteen flowers. 

 Again, mostEry throniumslike a soil rich 

 in leaf mould, and when found in such 

 soil and with other congenial surround- 

 ings there is often fully as great a differ- 

 ence as in the instance just cited. It 

 does not follow, however, that in a gar- 

 den where these accidental differences 

 are wanting all of the species will be of 

 the same size. There are several distinct 

 groups as to habitat. All of 



Soils. r 



the revohitum forms and E. 

 gzganteum, for instance, are native to 

 heavy moist soils in shade, and in my 

 garden the finest plants are grown in 

 land so wet that in winter a man would 

 mire in crossing it. Es.Hendersonii^ cali- 

 fornicum^ citrinum^wlHartwegii 'grow 

 naturally in many classes of soil upon 



