96 MR. J. G. BAKER ON HYPOXIDACEiE. 



Vellozieae. A mat of tomentum and a stellate arrangement of the 

 hairs occur occasionally, but rarely, in Hypoxidacese. Generally 

 the hairs are simple ; and upon the scapes and ovaries they are 

 usually bristly in texture and persistent in duration. 



Inflorescence. — All the Hypoxidacese are acaulescent. There 

 is no such thing in the tribe as a leafy flower-stem. The scapes 

 produced from a single root-stock are few, but indefinite in num- 

 ber. Throughout Hypoxis and in Pauridia we have always a 

 produced scape, bearing sometimes a single flower, sometimes few 

 flowers in a corymb, sometimes more numerous flowers in a cen- 

 tripetal raceme, with linear or setaceous bracts. In several 

 species of Molineria and Curculigo we have numerous flowers 

 packed together in dense heads, each flower subtended by a per- 

 sistent lanceolate, scariose bract. In some of the other Curculi- 

 gos the flowers spring singly from the root-stock in the axil of 

 large, scariose, lanceolate bracts upon peduncles so short that when * 

 the flower fades the fruit is quite hidden in the radical tuft. 

 Altogether inflorescence in the tribe furnishes one of the best 

 characters for the discrimination of groups and species. 



Pistil. — The ovary, so far as I have been able to observe, is 

 always three-celled. In fruit the septa often disappear ; and this 

 has led to some of the Hypoxidacese being described as unilocular. 

 Except in Pauridia, where it is deeply 6-cleft, the style is always 

 simple. There is a great variety in the shape and consolidation 

 of the three stigmas. 



Perianth. — As indicated already, the perianth is always per- 

 fectly regular, with divisions spreading horizontally when the sun 

 shines, the three outer usually firmer in texture and narrower and 

 more acute than the three inner. Only once, in the case of an 

 Australian species, have I seen the perianth deviate from typical 

 hexamerous symmetry ; and here it become tetramerous. As will 

 be seen, the presence or absence of a tube above the ovary fur- 

 nishes the best characters to mark the genera. 



Stamens. — The six stamens in position are correlated with the 

 shape of the perianth, being epigynous in insertion where there 

 is no tube, and inserted in a single series at the throat of the 

 tube where a tube is present. The filaments are always short 

 and erect. The anthers always dehisce down the face by a slit 

 near the edge ; they vary considerably in shape, being sometimes 

 absolutely basifixed, and sometimes slightly versatile ; they some- 

 times cohere obscurely in a ring round the style in an early stage . 



