founded on the Structure of their Seedlings. 3 
by Miss E. N. Thomas. Most of the figures illustrating this 
paper have been drawn by Miss Agnes Robertson, who has 
also assisted me in many ways during the preparation of it. 
Nature of the Evidence. 
The examination of forms within the Liliaceae has con- 
vinced me that some vascular characters of the young seed- 
ling have real systematic value. At an age when the plant 
consists of cotyledon, hypocotyl, and primary root, with an 
embryonic plumule sheltered by the base of the cotyledon, the 
vascular system — in species which at that age have differen- 
tiated one — does often indicate the relationship of allied 
genera to each other. 
The genera Anemarrhena^ Asphodelus, and Asphodeline , for 
example, are placed together by all systematists, and the 
vascular structure of their seedlings shows an identical ground- 
plan, though there are considerable modifications of the type 
in the two latter genera. So far the embryological evi- 
dence simply confirms the conclusions already drawn from 
the study of the mature characters. But when the unmistak- 
able Anemarrhena type of symmetry is discovered in the 
seedlings of Galtonia and Albuca, we have an unexpected 
link between two groups of genera widely separated by sys- 
tematists. 
The instance just quoted is of exceptional interest for 
reasons already suggested in a preliminary notice, which 
appeared in the May number of the 4 New Phytologist 5 (35). 
But it is only a fragment from a considerable body of evidence, 
which leads to the conclusion that embryological characters 
of the kind described can be shown to throw light on the 
inter-relationship of genera within the Liliaceae and allied 
orders. 
Until the monograph I am preparing on the comparative 
anatomy of seedlings within the Liliaceae is completed, this 
evidence will not be published in detail. But I hope to give 
a sufficiently full sketch of it here to justify the publication 
