1882 .] 
LILIUJI NITIDUM.-NATIONAL CARNATION AND PTCOTEE SOCIETY. 
129 
LILIUM NITIDUM. 
[Plate 569.] 
f UR figure of this beautiful and distinct- 
looking Lily was made in Mr. W. Bull’s 
Nursery at Chelsea in July, 1880. To 
us it appears widely different from 
any other Lily of which we have seen either 
plants or illustrations, but Mr. H. J. Elwes, 
the monographer of the genus Liliurn, tells us 
that he fails to find any character by which it 
may he separated from L. columbianvm, his 
own plate of which, however, we may remark 
is very different from ours. The narrow 
erect habit of growth, and spicate arrangement 
of the flowers at least produce the appearance 
of diversity. Mr. J. G. Baker, another great 
authority on Liliaceous plants, though at first 
doubtful about the name, believing it to be a 
variety of L. parvum, was at the time when 
our drawing was made “ quite satisfied as to 
the distinctness of the species,” and he has 
since published a description in the Gardeners' 
Chronicle (n. s., xiw, 198), of which we gladly 
avail ourselves on this occasion. 
The bulbs of L. nitidum are transversely 
oblong, oblique, subrhizomatous, with white 
lanceolate acute scales, H inch long. The 
stem is 2—2^- feet high, of which the upper 
third forms the inflorescence ; it is short, 
terete, smooth, purple below, green above, 
bearing several whorls of leaves, and others 
scattered above. The leaves are lance-shaped 
li—2 inches long, up to twenty in a whorl. 
The flowers are more spicate than panicled, 
upwards of a dozen spread over the upper por¬ 
tion of the stem ; they have long spreading 
pedicels which are cernuous in the flowering 
stage, arcuately ascending when in fruit, the 
bracts becoming smaller upwards. The flowers 
themselves are small, nodding, with lanceo¬ 
late recurved segments, which are rich golden 
yellow, copiously spotted in the lower half 
with reddish-brown dots ; the yellow anthers 
on green filaments project about an inch, and 
the green style is about the same length. 
Our figure will show that it is a very striking 
plant, highly characteristic in its narrow erect 
mode of growth, and singularly beautiful in 
the number and rich colouring of its flowers.— 
T. Moore. 
NATIONAL CARNATION AND PICOTEE SOCIETY. 
¥ E annex, in the sequence of their 
holding, reports of the three great 
exhibitions of the two sections— 
Southern and Northern — of this 
Society. We are pleased to note the de¬ 
velopment of the Southern Section into two 
meetings, owing probably to the removal of 
Mr. Dodwell to Oxford, and shall he glad if 
this arrangement becomes annual. Every 
lover of the Carnation and Picotee will learn 
with satisfaction of the improved health of our 
friend, that he was thus enabled to undertake 
the work of organising the second show, and 
the prospect afforded that he may be spared 
for some years to come to follow his favourite 
pursuit. 
Our notes on this occasion are brief, but we 
have the promise, before the year closes, of a 
notice of the general bloom from our friend, 
and this we are sure will amply make up for 
any seeming shortcoming on our part at the 
present. But some of the points of the meet¬ 
ings belong of necessity to the shows them¬ 
selves, and on these we must remark. 
In the very fore-front then we have to say 
the exhibitions were distinguished by peculiar 
excellence—that at South Kensington, on July 
25th, indeed by an excellence almost unique 
in the meetings of the Society, for never, in 
the opinion of those best informed, were the 
productions of the three prominent growers of 
the flowers—Mr. Turner, Mr. Douglas, and 
Mr. Dodwell—in such splendid condition, or 
the competition so close. Those who like 
ourselves had an opportunity of critically ex¬ 
amining the flowers, will sustain us in this 
opinion, and share in the satisfaction such an 
illustration of development given to skill and 
application affords. 
Never did the Society hold a better show, 
and never was there a more genial or general 
gathering. This was repeated at Oxford, where 
on the 1st prox., the eve of the exhibition, the 
roof-tree of our friend Mr. Dodwell’s cottage 
was warmed by a gathering of choice and 
genial spirits not easily to be forgotten. At 
the show next day, after the work had been 
gotten through, a luncheon party of upwards 
i 
