190 On the Treatment of Amaryllis longifolia, fyc. 



genus Amaryllis,* with the Amaryllis Zeylanica, of Linn^us, 

 and Crinum Zeylanicum of the Calcutta Catalogue. Crinum 

 Zeylanieum is a plant of difficult culture^ which Mr. Ker 

 has probably never seen, lately introduced into this country, 

 and very distinct from Crinum Moluccanum. Twenty-four 

 mule seeds were produced in one capsule ; the young plants 

 are all exactly like each other, and differ in the same points 

 from the parents, and I am confident that the same botanical 

 distinctions will be perpetuated in the seedlings that may be 

 raised from them. A new species of Crinum, superior in 

 beauty to any other of equal hardiness, and not much inferior 

 to the magnificent Crinum amabile, has been thus created in 

 the same manner in which the distinct species of many genera 

 of plants have been produced in the course of time, by the 

 accidental operations of nature. I sent one of these bulbs, 

 last year, to Calcutta, under the name of Crinum Govenium 

 hybridum, which should be mentioned, because its offspring 

 may perhaps hereafter be sent as an eastern production to this 

 country. I have raised several other curious mule plants, and 

 I have uniformly found that the mule seeds which lay in the 

 same capsule produce plants which have the same botanical 

 distinctions from their parents. On this subject I shall per- 

 haps address you again hereafter. Crinum Govenium hybri- 



* See Journal of Science and the Arts, vol. iii. p. 102. 



f The leaves of Crinum Zeylanicum flag and wither if exposed to the sun, 

 even when the bulb is immersed in the water of a pond out of doors. It is'there- 

 fore very difficult to find a suitable situation for it in the stove. The same diffi- 

 culty attends the culture of Pancratium biflorum. I suppose them to be both 

 natives of deep shades, where, although the temperature is high, the sun beams 

 cannot penetrate. Pancratium biflorum and triflorum are now considered at 

 Calcutta to be one species. 



