Plants of this fine species have been pretty common in 

 our collections for fifty years past ; but it is believed that not 

 more than one or two have blossomed during that period. 

 In the magnificent gardens of Schoenbrunn, near Vienna, 

 where the cultivation of the Cape Liliacece has been carried 

 on upon a larger scale and with more success than in 

 any other, no plant of this species has ever been known to 

 flower : and its nearest congener ciliarisj also pretty com- 

 mon in the European collections, appears never to have 

 produced its bloom even in a single instance. 



Tlie bulb of our sample was presented to H. R- H. Prince 

 Leopold of Cobourg, with many others, by Mr. Burchell, 

 on the return of that gentleman from his expedition into 

 the interior of South Africa, and flowered in May last in 

 the hothouse at Claremont, where it ripened its fruit in 

 July. From thence we were favoured with the specimen for 

 the use of this work. 



We have to thank Mr. Burchell for the obliging com- 

 munication of the following memomndum concerning the 

 species. " It is a plant of frequent occurrence in the more 

 " arid districts of Southern Africa,- growing both in sandy 

 " plains and rocky spots on the banks of the Bushmen's 

 " River at Rautenbach's Drift. It is also found on the 

 " great sandy plains of Litaakun. I have been assured by 

 ■** the Bushmen themselves that the juice of the bulb is one 

 " of tlie ingredients most commonly used in the poisonous 

 ^* composition with which the heads of their arrows are co- 

 " vei*ed. The wild antelopes seem carefully to avoid brows- 

 " ing the leaves of this plant, as I have observed it always 

 " left untouched, although the surrounding herbage has 

 " been grazed over." 



In the German edition of Lichtenstein's Travels in South 

 Africa we find another account of the Bushmen's poison for 

 their arrows. " The composition is of a brownish colour, 

 and when fit for use sticky and of the consistence of wax, 

 but soon becomes dry and hard. It is made by the mixture 

 of several substances, the efficacy of which the Bushmen 

 have learned by experiments upon living animals. The 

 principal ingredient is always the poison taken from snakes, 

 which being of itself too fluid and volatile for their use, is 

 incorporated with the juice of a large kind of Spurge 

 (Euphorbia), by which it acquires the waxy consistence al- 



