254 MB. J. G. BAKER ON THE 



name Anthericum altogether, dividing the plants that had been 

 placed under it by his predecessors under five genera — Phalangium, 

 Pulbinella, Tracliyandra, Ccesia, and Chlorophytum. But to do 

 this with Ccesia and Chloropliytum spoils the best distinctive 

 marks of the two genera, subindehiscent capsules in the one case 

 and discoid seeds in the other. Phalangium is a name of Tourne- 

 fort's, used in post-Linnean times by Poiret ; Bulbinella and Tra- 

 chyandra are genera constituted by Kunth to receive all the old 

 Antherica which he does not pkice under Phalangium or remove to 

 Ccesia and Chlorophytum. But the lines of demarcation between 

 the five, at the best are very faint ; and as Kunth has located a large 

 number of species of which he had no specimens to examine, he 

 has often placed them in the wrong genus, or described the same 



plant (insufficiently for recognition) two or three times over under 

 different genera. Here I have gone back to Antliericum in the 

 Linnean sense, paring away only such plants as Lloyd ia serotina 

 and Narihecium, which have been separated by general consent ; 

 and in this acceptation, even after separating Chlorophytum, it 

 contains 82 species, and is the third largest genus in the order, 

 Allium and Asparagus being the only two that outnumber it. In 

 identifying the species the essential clue to the insufficiently de- 

 scribed types of old date rested in the herbarium of Thunberg, by 

 whom most of them were originally described ; and here, once 

 again, I have to place on record my obligation to Dr. Theodor 

 Fries and the authorities of the University of Upsala, who have 

 sent me the set to England for leisurely study and comparison. 

 Beyond this, the material used has, as in former cases, been derived 

 from the three great London herbaria, that of M. Alphonse De 

 Candolle, of Lindley at Cambridge, and the fine set of Cape spe- 

 cimens brought together by Dr. Harvey at Dublin, for the loan 

 of which I have again cordially to thank Professor Perceval 

 Wright. 



The following is a summary sketch of the range of character in 

 the different organs which these two tribes show. 



Roots and Rootstocks. — The common type of root is a bundle ot 

 more or less thickened adventitious fleshy fibres, either cylindri- 

 cal and tapering gradually to the end, or thickened in the lower 

 part into small tubers. The roots tock in Eriospermum is always 

 thickened into a large irregularly shaped fleshy corm, and often 

 becomes a decided corm in isolated species of various Anthericoid 

 genera, such as Anthericum croceum, Bulbine vugionifoirmis, & a 



