154 



THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 



images used in the religious ceremonies of the Aztecs were 

 made. Similar plants are cultivated as grain crops in Thibet, 

 India and Africa, and it has been suggested that this might be 

 useful as a crop for parts of our Southwest. If it grows under 

 cutivation as well as it does when every man's hand is against 

 it, there should be nO' question regarding the success of the 

 crop. It is likely, however, that as soon as it had a value it 

 would develop a number of blights, rusts, and smuts like all the 

 other pampered denizens of the garden. 



Lilies with Bulblets. — Early in September, when I was 

 weeding a hardy border in which are planted Madonna lilies, I 

 found one withered stalk which was covered for several inches 

 above the ground with tin)^ lily bulbs, twenty-seven in all. 

 Some were as large as peas ; others hardly larger than pin- 

 heads. I planted them in a bulb pan and twenty-two have 

 grown intO' thrifty little plants. I have never seen or heard of 

 anything of the kind and would like to hear through the Ameri- 

 can Botanist if it is a common occurrence and how it is broug'ht 

 about. — Adella Prcscott, Nci^ Hartford, N. Y. [This seems to 

 be a unique performance of Liliuin candidum but a similar pro- 

 duction of bulbets is the regular thing in Liliuin tigriniiiii and 

 perhaps other species. The small bulblets produced among the 

 scales of the bulb by practically all species of lily are of the same 

 nature. Bulbs of all kinds are essentially buds. The usual 

 form, such as is illustrated by lilies, tulips, onions, and hya- 

 cinths, become individual plants and, as in other plants, produce 

 buds (bulbs) in the axils of the leaves. While it is usual tO' 

 find these new bulblets in the axils of the bud-scales, it is not un- 

 common tO' find them on the flowering stalks of tulips and in 

 some of the onions they occur among the flowers or occasionally 

 entirely take their places. Again in the adder's-tongue (Ery- 

 throniuin) they form long and slender runners and in the 

 amaryllis they often have the form of offsets. \Mien bulbs 

 occur in unusual places, as on the stalks without order in the 



