70 
PARK AND CEMETERY 
the stamens to prevent fertilization. Blit one day he 
saw bees fly over to his flowers laden with pollen gath- 
ered from a bed in another part of the Chelsea gar- 
dens, and fertilize his flowers, so that they soon faded 
and produced seed. It is thus that natural hybrids 
are sometimes produced. 
Erythronium, “dog’s tooth violet,” is a pretty little 
genus of seven or eight species, shade loving and chief- 
ly North American, but with E. Dens-canis ranging 
through Japan, Russian Asia and Europe. They have 
yellow, white and purple flowers. 
Calochortus , “Mariposa lily,” is a beautiful genus 
of 32 species, chiefly Mexican, Californian, and North- 
west American, with an outlier or two in the Rocky 
Mountains. As a rule, they are poorly adapted to the 
Atlantic States, and I cannot learn that anyone has tried 
to adapt them. Naturally, several are winter growers, 
but if someone in Colorado, New Mexico or Texas 
would take such species as Nuttallii, Gunnisoni, aureus, 
flexuosus, and macrocarpus and hybridize them when- 
ever they flowered together, may be they would get a 
strain in time hardier, and disposed to grow during 
summer. Or, if some of the south European gardeners 
would take them in hand they might change their sea- 
son, as they have many gladioli. I cannot take space 
to describe all their fine colorings, but the small C. 
cseruleus is lilac dotted with blue. 
C. Nuttallii grows at altitudes of 12,000 feet, has a 
wide geographical range, and is a larger flower. It 
has the outer whorl of its flowers yellow with dark 
spots, and the inner petaloid series white tinged with 
yellow or lilac, or altogether lilac with yellow bases 
and dark spots. C. luteus, too, has several forms, 
some are clear yellow (aureus), some have green and 
purple sepals and yellow or orange petals lined out 
with purple; others white, lilac, or yellowish with 
purple spots ; others again, lemon or golden yellow 
marked with brown. Those who have tried them in the 
Atlantic States have often planted them in cold frames 
to protect them from wet and excessive frost, using a 
soil lightened with fibry vegetable mold and gritty 
sand. After ripening naturally as possible they are 
taken up to dry, and then planted again in autumn, like 
tulips. 
Colchicum has 30 species in Europe, Asia and N. 
Africa. Those best known are autumn flowering with 
lilac-purple, striped and spotted, or rarely white flow- 
ers. The Himalayan C. luteum is spring flowering. 
They are called “autumn crocus,” but are readily 
known by their broader, longer, flatter leaves, which do 
not accompany the flowers, but appear in the spring. 
Bulbocodium is monotypic. It and its varieties ex- 
tend over much of Europe and Central Asia and have 
purple or striped flowers, somewhat in the way of the 
preceding, but spring flowering. 
Merendcra, of the same affinity, has 10 species, rang- 
ing from the Mediterranean eastward to Afghanistan 
and southward to the mountains of Abyssinia. They 
are rare, M. bulbocodium, and M. Caucasica in var. 
being about all in gardens. They have lilac, purple and 
carmine flowers. 
Xerophyllum, in 3 species, are natives of North 
America, and X. asphodeloides, found from the Pine 
barrens of New Jersey southward, is worth a place in 
gardens. There are also good Pacific coast forms. 
Gloriosa is in 3 species, from tropical Africa and 
Asia. G. Nepalensis, however, grows at considerable 
elevations. It has yellow flowers. G. superba, with 
orange red flowers, used to grow trailing in the sand 
down to high water mark at Madras, but I am not sure 
that it was not escaped from gardens. It would likely 
succeed in South Florida. 
Tricyrtis, “toad lily,” has 5 species, from the Hima- 
laya, China and Japan. T. hirta has spotted flowers 
which are almost always caught by early autumn frosts 
at the north. James Mac Pherson. 
RIGHT OF CONTROL AS TO BURIAL AND RE^ 
INTERMENT, 
The supreme court of Pennsylvania, speaking 
through Chief Justice Mitchell, says (Pettigrew vs. 
Pettigrew, 56 Atlantic Reporter, 878), that, when a 
man dies, public policy and public health, as well as 
the universal sense of propriety, require that his body 
should be decently disposed of. 
The right of control and disposition, whether 
called “property” or not, rests with the executor or 
administrator. But his right is not absolute, nor his 
judgment conclusive. Under the statute in Pennsyl- 
vania the right to> administration belongs to the sur- 
viving husband or widow. In the exigencies of busi- 
ness and the interests of the estate, it is not infre- 
quently desirable that a stranger, or even a creditor, 
