FLORA AND SYLVA, 



256 



killed by the summer heat. The cordate leaves 

 clearly mark it, and it is the only really white 

 flowered species. 



KEY TO WESTERN ERYTHRONIUMS. 



Leaves not at all mottled. Flowers white or bright yellow ; 

 leaves light green. Cascade range east to the Rocky Moun- 

 tains and along that range as far south as Colorado — the 

 only species of the Rocky Mountains. E.gvandiflorum. 



Leaves not mottled, undulate, of dark metallic green. 

 Flowers very small, light yellow, tinged purple ; Higher 

 Sierras, California. E. purpurascens. 



Corms forming offsets freely at the end of filiform fila- 

 ments from their base ; natives of the Sierra Nevada foot- 

 hills, from Tehama to Amador counties, California. 



E. Hartwegii. 



Leaves mottled ; inner petals destitute of ear-like ap- 

 pendages near their base ; Smith River Mountains, S.W. 

 Oregon. E. Howellii. 



Leaves mottled ; style clavate at top but undivided ; 

 flowers light yellow or cream with bright orange centre ; 

 S.W. Oregon. E. citrinum. 



Flowers pale purple with deep purple centre ; S. Ore- 

 gon. E. Hendevsonii. 



Leaves motted ; style deeply three cleft ; filaments 

 broadly deltoid, almost conniving around the style; flowers 

 from white through pink and purplish to deep rose ; found 

 near the coast line from Mendocino county to the Columbia 

 river, and probably to British Columbia. E. revolution. 



Filaments less deltoid although markedly so ; flowers 

 creamy or white ; on an interior line from Vancouver island 

 and Puget Sound, by way of the Willamette valley, to the 

 Rogue river valley in southern Oregon. E. giganteum. 



Filaments filiform; style deeply trifid; creamy white 

 flowers ; coast ranges of north-western California. 



E. californicum. 



Filaments filiform ; leaves cordate at the base ; sub- 

 alpine in the cascades from Oregon to British Columbia. 



E. montanum. 



References. — There have been many good plates of 

 these species published at various times, among which 

 readers may have access to the following :— E. giganteum, 

 pictured in Horto Van Houtteano as E. grandiflorum 

 (Pursh.), also Bot. Mag., p. 5714, a splendid picture, true 

 in every particular. E. Hendevsonii, Bot. Mag., good from 

 a botanical standpoint, but not doing justice to the plant. 

 E. revolutum, var. Johnsonii, shown as E. Johnsonii in Garden, 

 very true and fine from the artistic standpoint. E. califor- 

 nicum, pictured as E. giganteum. (This plate bears the name 

 of F. W. Burbidge, lith., but I do not know the original 

 publication.) 



CARL PURDY. 



Ukiah, California. 



Early-flowering Torch Lilies. — One of 

 our readers writes : — " I was in Norfolk for a 

 few days at Easter, and was surprised to see 

 in the garden adjoining the house some large 

 Kniphofias carrying several spikes of flowers 

 which, though small and dwarf, yet showed 

 their red and yellow ' pokers ' quite clearly. 

 The garden faces roughly N.W., and is pro- 

 tected for the most part on its other sides. Is it 

 not somewhat unusual, even on the sea-coast, 

 to find Kniphofias flowering so early ? — G. C. 

 Leman." 



Botany not Gardening. — The confusion or 

 gardening with botany requires resisting, for 

 the drying and dissecting of plants is quite 

 apart from the art of gardening, which is be- 

 coming daily more important to humanity, 

 and that (amongst manifold reasons) even from 

 the scientific point of view. We are glad to 

 see this truth expressed by the well-known 

 writer, Mr. John Burrows, in a recent num- 

 ber of Country Life in America : — " The same 

 with botany. I regard its class-room uses as 

 very slight. The educational value of the tech- 

 nical part is almost nil. But the humanising 

 value of the love of the flowers, the hygienic 

 value of a walk in their haunts, the esthetic 

 value of the observation of their forms and tints 

 — these are all vital. The scientific value which 

 attaches to your knowledge of the names of 

 their parts or of their families — what is that ? 

 Their habits are interesting ; their means of 

 fertilisation are interesting; the part insects 

 play in their lives — the honey-yielders, the 

 pollen-yielders, their means of scattering their 

 seeds, and so forth — all are interesting. To 

 know their habitats and seasons ; to have as- 

 sociations with them when you go fishing ; 

 to land your trout in a bed of Bee-balm or 

 Jewel-weed ; to pluck the linnasa in the moss 

 on the mountain you are climbing; to gather 

 Water-Lilies from a boat with your friend ; 

 to pluck the Arbutus on the first balmy day 

 of April ; to see the scarlet Lobelia light- 

 ing up a dark nook by the stream as you row 

 by in August ; to walk or drive past vast acres 

 of purple Loosestrife, looking like a lake of 

 colour — this is botany with something back ot 

 it, and the only place to learn it is where it 

 grows. Nature under the dissecting knife and 

 the microscope yields important secrets to the 

 students of biology, but the unprofessional 

 students want but little of all this." 



SONGS OF THE WOODS AND 

 FLOWERS: The Isle. 



There was a little lawny islet 

 By anemone and violet, 



Like mosaic, paven : 

 And its roof was flowers and leaves 

 Which the summer's breath enweaves, 

 Where nor sun nor showers nor breeze 

 Pierce the pines and tallest trees, 



Each a gem engraven. 

 Girt by many an azure wave 

 With which the clouds and mountains pave 



A lake's blue chasm. 



— Shelley. 



