304 Oliver,— On Sar codes sanguined , Torr. 
When then, in the autumn of 1888, some very fine specimens of 
Sarcodes sanguined , in excellent preservation, were presented 
to the Royal Gardens, Kew, by Messrs. F. D. Godman and 
Elwes, it was most willingly that I undertook, at Mr. Thiselton 
Dyer’s kind suggestion, to work through the plant and have 
a portrait of it executed by a competent artist. 
In the present paper I confine myself almost entirely to 
a description of Sarcodes without entering into any discussion 
as to the affinities of the order Monotropeae , or into any 
history of the various memoirs bearing on the morphology 
of the other genera. In the important contributions by 
Drude 1 , and by Kamienski 2 , sufficient references will be 
found. 
Sarcodes sanguined , Torr., the ‘ Snowplant ’ of California, was 
first described and figured by Torrey 3 in the ‘ Plantae Fre- 
montianae,’ and later, indifferently, by Chatin 4 in his 
‘ Anatomie.’ The only other representation that I know of it 
is a sketch by Miss Marianne North in her gallery of flower 
paintings in Kew Gardens. This shows the plant amid its 
natural surroundings of snow and pine-woods. The drawing 
which is reproduced here is by Mr. John Allen, and I would 
express my indebtedness to him for the trouble and care he 
has bestowed upon it. The drawing is the size of life; the 
specimen being about 35 c.m. in length excluding the tuft of 
roots. 
Each complete specimen of Sarcodes consists of a flowering 
spike with fleshy scales and a considerable tuft of roots. The 
whole of the epigeal parts are coloured a brilliant crimson, 
due to the presence in the superficial cells of the plant of a 
soluble, red colouring-matter, allied probably to the tannin 
series. It is, like its allies, entirely destitute of chlorophyll. 
1 O. Drude, Die Biologie von Monotropa Hypopitys , L., und Neottia Nidus 
avis , L. Gottingen, 1873. 
2 Fr. Kamienski, Les organes vegetatifs du Monotropa Hypopitys , L. Mem. Soc. 
Nat. d. Sc. Nat. et Math. d. Cherbourg, t. xxiv, 1882. 
3 John Torrey, Plantae Fremontianae, p. 17 and PI. x, Smithsonian Contributions 
to Knowledge. 
4 G. A. Chatin, Anat. Comp. d. Vegetaux (Plantes parasites), tab. Iv. 
