LETTER TO THE CHAIRMAN ON L. MEDEOLOIDES. 371 



EXTRACT FROM A LETTER TO THE CHAIRMAN 



ON L. MEDEOLOIDES. 



By Alfeed Unger, Yokohama. 



. . . Regarding Lilium medeoloides, on which you state in your 

 " Monograph of the Genus Lilium,'' that there is probably an error in your 

 plate, and that you must leave the matter of investigation to travellers 

 and residents in Japan, I do not know if you were ever addressed in 

 regard to the matter, therefore I venture to correct an error which 

 exists in connection with this Lily. Liliinn medeoloides (Japanese 

 name " Kuruma yuri," that is "Wheel Lily," owing to the position of 

 the leaves in whorls) grows here in Japan on the Fuji yama, and in the 

 Nikko Mountains, and is exactly the Lily, bulb, stem, and leaves, which you 

 reproduce in your plate, but the flowws are wrong, and should be like the 

 single flower on the right-hand side of your plate, that is a flower belong- 

 ing to the Martagon group. Neither I nor any of my employes, who 

 have a great knowledge of Lilies, have seen Lilium medeoloides with 

 other flowers in Japan.* 



But last year, on a trip to China (Kiautschou), where I have rather 

 important business interests with the German Government in connection 

 with the reforesting of the mountains there, some Chinamen brought me 

 a lot of Lily bulbs in flower which are exactly those of your plate with 

 erect flowers. 



Unfortunately just then the troubles in China began, after the Taku 

 fight, and for that reason I could not go into the country where they 

 grow ; but took a number of bulbs with me and planted them here in my 

 garden, where they are just now in full flower, and all my Japanes3 

 employes tell me that they never saw such a Lily in Japan before. 

 There is, therefore, no doubt that the Lily which Mr. Oldham found in 

 1862 in Herschel Island near Corea, and of which he sent a dried 

 specimen to Kew^ Herbarium, which Mr. Fitch used for painting your 

 plate, is the same Lily which I found in Kiautschou, but not the Lilium 

 medeoloides of Japan. 



I am sending you herewith two specimenst pressed as carefully as 

 possible, and should be pleased if this would help to bring a little more 

 light into the history of this species, or possibly add a new species to 

 the large genus of Lilies. I sent last year a number of these bulbs which 

 I brought with me from Kiautschou to the Royal Gardens in Sanssouci, 

 near Potsdam, thinking they might be of interest there, especially as they 

 came from our new German colony. The shipment w^as duly acknow- 

 ledged, but I do not know if they have flowered there 



* At page vii. of his Monograph Mr. Elwes says : " If the very limited materials 

 on which our knowledge of L. viedeoloides is based do not mislead us, we have in it 

 a species resembling the others (Isolirioiis), with which it is grouped in nothing but 

 the (erect) position of the flowers ; but ... I cannot help suspecting an abnormal 

 condition of the specimens on which it was founded." Mr. Elwes seems to us in this 

 sentence to have exactly foreseen the precise condition of matters to which Mr. Unger 

 draws attention. — Ed 



t These were sent to Kew, and Mr. J. G. Baker reports : " This Lily differs from 

 L. medeoloides by the larger size and deeper scarlet colour of its flowers and by its 

 longer style, but I think it can only be regarded as a variety of that species." 



