136 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
Description. — A small glabrous evergreen perennial. Roots fibrous. Stems 
annual, smooth, round, arising in autumn, bearing a small tuft of leaves during 
the winter. Flower-stems erect or ascending, from 2 inches (my plants) to 8 
inches (Britton description) high, leafy, simple or branched. Leaves alternate, 
glabrous, flat, fleshy, sessile, shortly spurred ; the basal ones spathulate, bluntly 
pointed, tapered below, ^ inch by J inch or more ; the upper linear-lanceolate, 
rather acute, ^ inch by J inch (in my plants), | inch to i inch by J inch (Britton). 
Fig. 70. — 5. mellitulum Rose. 
Inflorescence a terminal 2-3-branched cyme, i inch (to 2 inches) across. Buds 
ovate-lahceolate, ribbed. Flowers white, ^ inch across. Sepals green, leaf-like, 
long, linear, rather acute, slightly unequal, slightly spurred, separate nearly to 
the base. Petals wide-spreading in the upper part, narrowly lanceolate (to linear 
oblanceolate — Britton), acute, a little longer than the sepals, J inch long, white, 
grooved. Stamens spreading, slightly shorter than the petals, filaments pink, 
anthers purple. Carpels slender, erect, shorter than the stamens, pink. 
Flowers August. Not hardy. 
Habitat. — Mountains of New Mexico. 
My specimens, which were received from the Smithsonian Insti- 
tution, did not grow freely, nor did^me of them which were cultivated 
