of delicate sprays studded with ruby-coloured flowers, each 
set in a silvery calycine cup; than which a prettier floral 
object cannot well be conceived. It is a native of saline 
districts in the South-East of Europe, from Dalmatia and 
Hungary eastward through Bulgaria and S. Russia to the 
Crimea and Siberia east of the Ural Mountains. A careful 
comparison of the specimens cultivated at Kew as 8. 
tatarica, and here figured, inclines me to think that this is 
not the common form of that species, of which the numerous 
Herbarium specimens which I have examined show denser 
closer-set flowers, and that, but for the shape of the leaves, 
it would be referable to the variety angustifolia of Boissier, 
which has a more glabrous calyx and usually one-flowered 
spikelets, and is the S. Bessertana, Roem. and Schult., of 
which there is a poor figure in Reichenbach’s Iconographia 
with the slender sprays and distant flowers of our plant. 
S. tatarica was introduced into England in 1731 by 
Philip Miller, and is described in the first edition of his 
Dictionary as Limomium 5; it is perfectly hardy, flowers 
in June and July, and remains long in bloom. : 
Duscr. Root woody, perennial. Leaves tufted, four to 
six inches long, oblong, spathulate or oblanceolate, acumi- 
nate, mucronate, rigid, glabrous, narrowed into the petiole. 
Scape short, stiff, erect, triquetrous, two to three inches 
long, soon giving off a long broad recurved panicle of 
distichous recurved slender triquetrous branches, which 
again bear simple or branched distichous recurved spikes 
one-half to one and a half inch long. Spikelets subunilateral 
on the branches, distant, one- to three-flowered; outer 
bracts ovate, keeled, pungent, with broad membranous 
margins ; innermost oblong, with three nearly equal cusps. 
Flowers one-sixth of an inch long. Calyx funnel-shaped, 
plicate ; lobes short, oblong, obtuse, erect. Petals connate 
at the base; claws long, contiguous, together forming a 
tube; limb bright ruby-red, notched. Styles filiform ; 
stigmas capitate.-—J. D. H. 
_ Fig. 1, flower; 2, the same, cut vertically ; 3, stamen; 4, pistil; 5, outer, and, 6, 
inner bract :—all enlarged, ; 
