1870. ] 
BEODI^A COCCINEA. 
145 
BRODIiEA COCCINEA. 
( 5^/(0 
fci 
WITH AN ILLUSTRATION. 
^ tHe opportunity of presenting to our readers the accompanying figure 
Oitr of a beautiful new hardy bulb, we are indebted to Mr. W. Thompson, of 
Ipswich, by whom it has been imported from the Trinity Mountains, 
California, and by whom it was exhibited at South Kensington on the 
8th ult,, when it received the well-merited reward of a First-Class Certificate 
from the Royal Horticultural Society’s Floral Committee. 
This Brodicea coccinea produces a flower-scape of from two to three feet in 
height, and accompanied by channeled leaves of nearly the same length. The 
flowers are nodding, and borne in a terminal umbel of from five to twelve, or 
even fifteen to twenty, when established and vigorous. The flowers themselves 
are about one and a half inch long, on pedicels nearly an inch in length, and are 
ventricosely cylindraceous and obscurely ribbed, the tube for about an inch at its 
base being of a rich magenta-crimson, while the upper part and the six recurved 
limb segments are externally pea-green, somewhat paler internally. The three 
exterior petaloid stamens are greenish-white, much broader than the perianth 
segments, and forming a kind of coronet at the mouth of the tube. The three 
perfect stamens and the trifid stigma are about as long as the perianth. 
Professor Wood has described this plant in the Proceedings of the Academy 
of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia^ under the name of Brevoortia Ida-Maia ; and 
Professor Asa Gray, in the Proceedings of the American Academy of Arts and 
Sciences^ has made the following remarks thereupon:—“Professor Wood has 
naturally characterized this very striking and handsome plant as a new genus, to 
which, indeed, it has as good a claim as Dichelostemma^ or perhaps even Stropho- 
lirion ; but however Brodicea be limited, it cannot well fail to include this species, 
which has wholly the structure of the typical B. grandiflora, only that the tube 
of the flower is proportionally longer, the scales answering to the other set of 
stamens much broader, and the colour peculiar in the genus, although not unlike 
that of Stropholirion.” 
As regards its cultivation, we learn from Mr. Thompson that it appears to be 
perfectly hardy when planted deep enough to be beyond the reach of frost, and, 
moreover, that when planted in a clump of five or six roots it has a most striking 
appearance. With him it has hitherto been grown with very good success in 
loamy soil, but it should be well drained. The flowering season is May and June. 
It promises to increase freely, and unlike some of the allied genera, its bulbs do 
not dwindle, but with ordinary care increase in vigour annually. From the 
returning favour which cultivators seem to be extending towards hardy plants, 
we shall be much surprised if this new Brodicea does not become an especial 
favourite with those who elect to make collections of that most interesting 
though long neglected group,—the hardy bulbs.—M. 
3rd series.—III. 
H 
