September 3,1891. ] 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
203 
in this country. It would be well if the Government would afford 
facilities to the County Council to acquire waste lands, borrow money, 
and plant them, which would eventually bring a good revenue to the 
country and afford employment to thousands of men. — Bernard 
Cowan. 
CRINUMS. 
[In reply to a correspondent (“ J.”) who asks for information 
respecting the species of Crinums, we give the following notes by 
Sir Charles Strickland, Bart., read at a meeting of the Royal 
Horticultural Society last year, and reproduced in vol. xiii. of 
the Society’s Journal. Illustrations of two distinct types are 
and in the form of the flowers. The first has columnar, leafy 
bulbs like a Leek, evergreen leaves, for the most part erect and 
spreading, and perfectly even, symmetrical, star-shaped flowers on 
the top of straight, upright tubes, and with upright, spreading,, 
usually straight stamens. This group includes Mr. Baker’s sub- 
genera of Stenaster and Platyaster, between which I cannot see 
any sufficiently marked line of distinction. A large part or this 
group comes from Asia, Australia, and the South Sea Islands, 
especially those with very narrow petals. A few very beautiful 
forms with wider petals come from tropical America. The other- 
group is the same as Mr. Baker’s sub-genus Codonocrinum. These 
are very different in character from the first group. They have 
round bulbs like an Onion, many of them are deciduous, and others 
Fig. 30.—CRINUM PURPURASCENS. 
given in figs. 30 and 31, namely, Crinum purpurascens and C. 
Kirki.] 
In the remarks that I am going to make upon the plants of the 
genus Crinum with which I am acquainted I do not intend to 
deal in any way with the naming of them. Many of those that 
I know have had two or more different names given to them, and 
a large number of the names that I know have been applied 
to two or more different plants. All that I propose to do is to try 
and arrange in some kind of order those plants which I have had 
in cultivation ; but as this includes only a part of those described 
by Mr. Baker and others, it must be understood that a fuller 
acquaintance with all the recorded species might materially alter 
this arrangement. I divide the genus into two large groups, which 
are very distinct from one another both in their habit of growth 
which are not quite deciduous grow in a similar manner to the- 
deciduous ones. The tube of the flowers is curved, and the flowers- 
are nodding, bell-shaped, and more or less ringent, and with broad 
petals. The stamens are curved, often lying close together. There 
appear to be a few species which are more or less intermediate 
between the two great groups. There are only two or three of 
these which I have any acquaintance with, but I think that most 
of the species which I have not seen, which are figured, may be 
arranged in one of the two groups. 
Of the plants with very narrow petals, I have examples bought 
under various names, e.g., asiaticum, latifolium, pedunculatum,. 
procerum, pedunculatum from Lord Howe’s Island, species from 
South Sea Islands, species from Japan, sumatranum, bracteatum, 
&c., all of them large plants with chick, columnar, leafy bulbs. 
