rather fleshy, bright green, acute, concave in front, convex 
at the back. Scape shorter than the leaves, slender, fistular, 
brittle, quite smooth. Bracts six or eight, shorter than the 
flowers, membranous, ovate-ianceolate, acuminate. Flowers 
in a subglobose head, crowded, subsessile or on pedicels one- 
sixth to half an inch long. Perianth bright blue; tube 
ventricose and obscurely lobed, half an inch long ; lobes 
rather shorter than the tube, oblong, subacute, tips slightly 
incurved, spreading, nearly flat. Staminodes short, erect, 
broadly triangular-ovate, obtuse. Anthers sessile, oblong, 
2-cuspidate. Ovary elliptic, sessile ; style included, stigma 
3-lobed; ovules numerous, 2-seriate in each cell. Capsule 
elliptic-oblong, enclosed in the membranous perianth-tube. 
Seeds few in each cell, linear-oblong.—/. D. H. 
: Fig. 1, Flower; 2, perianth laid open; 3, ovary ; 4, transverse section of 
ditto :—all magnified. 
