28 



FLORA AND SYLVA, 



The variations are innumerable. The form known 

 in cultivation is the best ; it comes from Mendocino 

 County, California. In my garden I have grown it 

 with petals 2 inches long and as wide. Wild plants, 

 too, in good conditions, grow as large. Var. robustus 

 — At an elevation of about 3,000 feet, in El 

 Dorado County, I found a form, evidently related to 

 the last-named species, growing in a very dwarfish 

 form in low, wet, and cold meadows. It grew 

 among the coarse sedges, which are found in such 

 places, and, but for the very vivid markings, would 

 have hardly commended itself to my attention. 

 I noted that instead of the single bulblet borne 

 on the stem of the typical oculatus it had a string of 

 from three to five nearly spherical bulblets. In cul- 

 tivation they quite lost their dwarfish habits and 

 showed surprising vigour, and bore large flowers. 

 Undoubtedly they are the result of untold genera- 

 tions of plants fighting with untoward conditions 

 and acquiring great vitality and powers of repro- 

 duction. As garden plants they will, when the finer 

 colour forms have been rectified by selection, be 

 second to none. 



C. Vesta. — Tall large flowers with exceptionally 

 long lateral stems. In colour the petals are white 

 tinged with lilac and marked with a broad band of 

 rich maroon across the lower third. The gland is 

 distinct in being narrow and like two lunate glands 

 placed side by side. It bears from three to five large 

 offsets at the base of the stem, which if undisturbed 

 move away from the parent bulb at the beginning of 

 the second season, andflower the secondor third sea- 

 son thereafter. In The Garden of October 12, 1895, 

 thereisafineplate of C. Vesta. Itsdistributionis very 

 peculiar. East of the Redwood region in Mendocino 

 and Humboldt counties, Northern California, there 

 is a belt of mountains and valleys in which the Oak 

 predominates with many open hillsides and valleys. 

 Here and there a deposit of a black or blue, very cold 

 and tenacious clay is found. These deposits are often 

 but a few rods across and seldom over a few acres in 

 extent, and only in them does C. Vesta grow. The 

 little colonies of bulbs may be separated from each 

 other by miles of other soils, but know what they 

 want and take nothing else. As Mendocino County 

 has an annual rainfall of from 28 to 60 inches and is 

 cold (as low as 12 degrees), C. Vesta, with its foliage 

 exposed to daily freezing for some weeks each year, 

 meets rather trying conditions. In cultivation it has 

 amply proved its vigour and is the best of all Calo- 

 chorti as a garden plant, thriving in any loam. In- 

 deed, I have never seen that it did any better when 

 given a heavy clay soil than in sandy loam or a porous 

 made soil. Increasing as itdoes in a geometrical ratio 

 by means of its offsets, it will, if undisturbed, be- 

 come so crowded as to starve itself. I have seen 

 seventy-five bulbs in a clod the size of a man's fist. 



C. venustus (trut). — In this the glands are oblong 

 or inclining to round. The colouring is through a 

 wider range of tints than in the forms preceding, and 

 the markings more varied. In most of the variations 

 there is an addition to the eye in the centre of the 

 petal of a red or gold blotch at the apex of each petal. 

 The seed-pod is linear, while in the preceding form 

 it is arrow-shaped. As I have said, the forms of C. 

 luteus grow in open glades, on warm slopes, or on 

 clay uplands. On the other hand, the forms of C. 

 venustus grow in open woodlands, or among brush, 

 and usually in sandy or light soils. There are sections 

 of the Sierra Nevada mountains where the two species 

 meet, and there their tastes in soil and situation are 

 well shown. In the open wet glades, where the 

 soil is heavy and wet in the rainy season, C. luteus 

 and its variations will be found in abundance, while 

 in the woodlands and open brushy country all 

 around, and to the very edge of the glades, C. ve- 

 nustus thrives, yet neither crosses its soil boundary. 

 In the coast ranges I have found C. venustus on 

 hillsides on a southerly exposure, growing among 

 low bushes or tall perennials. 



C. venustus type. — Horticulturally known as C. 

 venustus roseus, and can be told by its broad wedge- 

 shaped petals, white or creamy in colour, with a 

 blood-red blotch at the top of each petal. It is 

 widely distributed in the coast ranges of California, 

 from the extreme south to the southern side of San 

 Francisco Bay, and has many forms. In two locali- 

 ties it sports, as do the El Dorado forms, and, like 

 them, to every shade of white, pink, purple, and 

 red. Thousands of flowers in these spots could be 

 picked, no two of which would be alike. As a rule, 

 it is low-growing, but at its extreme northerly ex- 

 tension there is a form which is among the tallest 

 of the Butterfly Tulips and, unlike most of the 

 strain, very vigorous. Very curiously, this strain 

 seems to have been developed by the plants being 

 in the region where sticky clays, similar to those 

 in which C. Vesta is found, crop up in the vicinity 

 of its natural sandy habitat, and this strong strain, 

 I doubt not, has originated in the effort to adapt 

 itself to a cold and uncongenial soil. Be that as 

 it may, the plants in this one locality are several 

 hundred per cent, more vigorous and larger than 

 those elsewhere in the coast range. Var. sulphureus. 

 — In one or two localities in which the typical C. 

 venustus grows yellow-flowered forms occur, and in 

 a few places these become the predominating type. 

 Nzx.purpurascens. — Tall, strong-growing, with pur- 

 plish flowers, much darker on the back of the petals. 

 They have the eye of the species, but are destitute 

 of the red blotch at the apex of the petals, which 

 mark the type. They have the same habit as to 

 bulblets as C. Vesta, and, like it, grow only in a black 

 or blue, very sticky clay, and at intervals from San 



