270 
THE FLOEIST AND POMOLOGIST. 
[ Deceuber, 
only one new flower-bearing stem developed each season from the centre of 
the bulb, and a few from the axils of the decaying outer scales. A 
new bulb, whether grown from seed, or from bulblets developed in the axils of 
the above-ground leaves of the floriferous stem, or produced in the axil of one of 
the bulb-scales, takes not less than three years under the most favourable cir¬ 
cumstances before it develops a flower-bearing stem. The first season we get an 
ovoid mass, perhaps a quarter of an inch in thickness, composed of half a dozen 
tightly imbricated scales, which sends out three or four slender radicular fibres 
from its base. At the end of the next summer we have a bulb as large as a Hazel¬ 
nut, with a copious development of strong radicular fibres from its under-side, and 
the half-dozen scales prolonged above the soil into a rosette of oblanceolate leaves. 
Next year, if circumstances be favourable, the flower-bearing stem is developed ; 
and then, if nothing untoward happens, the bulb goes on living for an indefinite 
period, sending out each year a flower-stem from its centre, and shredding off old 
scales with buds in their axils, more copiously in some kinds, less copiously in 
others, from the circumference all round. 
“ In two of the Californian Lilies, L. Washingtonianum and L. Humholdtii^ 
this type of structure is modified by the central axis of the bulb being prolonged 
horizontally, so that the scales are thrown out of a regular spiral, and the mature 
bulb is irregular in shape and more or less flattened laterally. Here, then, we 
get a squamose bulb taking the first step to pass off in the direction of a true 
rhizome; but the fleshy scales are quite similar to those of the typical form. 
The direction of the rhizome is vertically oblique, the new scales being formed at 
the deepest end. 
“ A second modification of this typo of structure I cannot do better than 
describe in the words of Duchartre (Obsei'vations sur le genre Lis^ p. 28) :—‘To 
give an idea of this development, allow me to report what I have seen in Lilium 
canadense^ as examined at the commencement of the month of March, and in 
consequence at a time when only the first indications of the vegetation of the year 
were observable. At the base of the stem which had flowered the preceding 
year, and of which there remained only a small portion hidden in the ground, 
was found the bulb from which that stem had issued forth, a bulb formed of 
short scales, still fleshy and fresh for the most part, pointed and laxly imbricated, 
which, taken as a whole, was about twice as broad as deep. Immediately above 
this bulb was the remainder of the old stem, bearing a ring of root-fibres now 
dead and dried up. Finally, the extreme base of this same old stem was pro¬ 
longed below the bulb with a diameter nearly double that which it had above it; 
and after half-an-inch or more it ended by a broad truncation. It is from this 
old stem which has flowered in the preceding year, immediately below the old 
bulb, and very likely from the axil of a scale that has fallen, that the horizontal 
branch is originated, which at its extremity bears the new bulb from which 
the conical summit of the shoot which will soon develop into the 
flower-stem of the year, is already seen to rise. This rhizome does not 
reach a length of more than an inch or an inch and a half. From its points 
of origin it descends a little into the soil, then raises itself to become horizontal, 
and finally rises at its extremity to form the axis of the new bulb, and to be 
finally continued as the new flower-stem. In its underground progress it bears 
small spiral scales, thick and fleshy, of which the first are slightly spaced, but 
those at the end of this subterranean branch growing closer and larger and 
forming thus the new bulb. From the anterior portion of this rhizome, especially 
from the part that bears the lower part of the young bulb, arise numerous 
thickish rootlets, on the healthy action of which the vitality of the new vegeta- 
