Page:Journal of botany, British and foreign, Volume 34 (1896).djvu/531

 SISYRINCHIUM CALIFOENICUM DRYAND. 495 whole leaf, and where free have a narrow membranous colourless or pinkish edge ; length 1^-2 in., with a greatest width of lf-2f lines at the top of the connate sheath-base. Inner spathe somewhat similar in shape, but the broad membranous edges free to the base and overlapping; length half to two-thirds that of the outer spathe; greatest width 1|~2 lines just above the middle, from which it tapers rapidly to a subacute apex ; completely sheathing the inner bracts and the lower half of the slender flower pedicels. Inner bracts membranous, lanceolate, with white scarious margins and apex, diminishing in size towards the centre of the inflores- cence, the outermost being about five-sixths the length of the inner spathe ; each succeeding bract sheathes the younger ones. Flowers 4 to 5, solitary in the axil of each bract, except the two uppermost ; apparently at the same level, owing to the non- development of internodes between the bracts. Pedicel slender, stiff, about 1 in. long in the flower, and curved into a horizontal position on leaving the spathe ; in the fruit reaching about 1^ in., and straight or less curved. Perianth -leaves six, spreading, delicate, trans- parent, yellow when fresh, orange-coloured when dry, bluntly oval, narrowing at the base, with 5-7 dark sharply-marked crinkled veins ; about ^ in. long by about ^ in. broad. Stamens three, and about equal in length to the three filiform styles, and less than half the length of the perianth. Ovary inferior, oval, IJ line long. Capsules sub-erect or slightly nodding, trigono-ellipsoidal, ^ in. or less in length, and a little more than J in. or less in diameter. Seeds borne on slender filiform stalks, sub -spherical, with a large rounded depression on one side ; testa black, hard and rugose. As frequently happens in the genus, the plant stains the paper in which it is pressed a purple colour. S. calif ornicum, according to a note in Alton, Hortus Kewensis, iv. 136 (1812), where it is described, presumably by Dryander, was introduced in 1796. We have in the Banksian herbarium a specimen brought from Port Bodega, in California, by Archibald Menzies, and on the same sheet a specimen was subsequently mounted from Hort. Kew., with the date 1798. It is interesting to note that the taller specimens recently found in Ireland closely resemble the plant brought from California by Menzies a' century ago. The earliest name is Marica californica Ker, in the Botanical Magazine, t. 983 (1807). The drawing for the plate was made '' at Mr. Salisbury's botanic garden" at Mill Hill. Salisbury himself (in the Trans. Hort. Soc. i. [1820], p. 310) raised the plant into a new genus, Hydrastylus, a name which " was suggested by the late Mr. Dryander." Apropos of its cultivation he says: " A perfectly hardy plant, I believe ; at least many seedlings lived through the winter of 1806 in the open air at Mill Hill ; and if sheltered under a cucumber-frame it may certainly be ;preserved, flowering and 'ripening seeds all summer." /' -Jj' - ""^'"'^Ili occurs native in California an5 Orfegon. ''^-^'H^j -^^ ,j .v.^... ,.