Page:Transactions of the Linnean Society of London, Volume 10.djvu/21

 OF THE

I. Characters of a new Liliaceous Genus called Brodiæa. By James Edward Smith, M.D. F.R.S. P.L.S.

Read April 19, 1808.

I had occasion, in treating of the distinctions between a calyx and corolla, Introduction to Botany, 263, to advert to a new genus of the liliaceous family, furnished with internal petals. It consists of two species, both which I have received, in a dry state, from Mr. Menzies, who discovered them in 1792 in New Georgia on the west coast of North America. The same liberal friend, to whom the Linnean Society, as well as myself, has so often been obliged, perceiving I had, in the place above mentioned, fallen into an error respecting the number of the internal petals, which are 3, not 6, has favoured me with his original drawings, made from living plants on the spot, with dissections. By these I am enabled better to understand the subject than I could from dried specimens, which I had been unwilling to submit to the process of boiling and anatomizing, till I might have occasion to investigate them thoroughly for precise description. Hence the divided inner petals of one of them Transactions of the Linnean Society of London/Volume 10