224 
AMARYLLIDACEiE. 
I have obtained this summer strong seedling bulbs from the 
mule crossed again by the pollen of Amancaes, from which I 
expect an improved Amancaes with a hardier constitution. 
The mule seems nearly as vigorous as Calathina. I have 
also one seedling from a flower of Amancaes which had been 
deprived of its anthers and touched with the pollen of the 
mule. The seed of Ismene is large and round, and vegetates 
immediately in a remarkable manner, forming a bulb as big 
as itself (sometimes much bigger) far under ground without 
pushing any leaf. As soon as the seed rots, the young bulb 
must be left without water till the next spring. A person 
unaware of the peculiarity of this genus and Choretis, when 
he found the seed rotten, would be likely to throw away the 
earth without suspecting the formation of the bulb near the 
bottom of the pot. If the seedlings of Amancaes are grown 
in loam, I believe they will be twenty years before they 
attain size to flower ; in pure white sand or a very sandy 
compost, I think they may flower the third. I have a mule 
seedling from Amancaes, from seed of last year, which is 
now near two feet high with five leaves. The seedling bulbs 
raised this year from the mule are larger than the natural 
Amancaes from seed that was sown at the same time. 
The ovules of Amancaes are sometimes four in a cell, 
two being abreast, and a second row behind them a little 
higher, and sometimes three in a file, the base of one behind 
the head of another, and probably six ovules to the cell may 
be a perfect complement (two abreast in three tiers), but I 
have never seen more than four. By removing the sepaline 
ribs from the germen when the flower withers, the ovules 
will be discovered, and their advance to maturity may be 
observed. The name Calathina, being of Greek derivation, 
should not be accented on the i. Ismene Calathina is said 
to be a native of Brazil, but I am not satisfied of the cor- 
rectness of that statement. It has been brought to England 
from Buenos Ayres, where it is much cultivated in gardens, 
but its natural locality in S. America has not been ascer- 
tained, and it has not found its way into the herbariums of 
collectors in that quarter, except from the gardens of Buenos 
Ayres. Mr. Skinner found it wild in Guatemala, and 
brought it to this country. I think his plant is less fragrant, 
and differs a little in the length of the tube and the point of 
the leaf from that which we obtained from Buenos Ayres, 
but the difference, if at all permanent, is insignificant. 
