variable in shape, straight or falcate, simple or more or less 
equally bifid or denticulate at the margin; the whole of a pale 
very glaucous green colour. Scape four feet long, entirely clothed 
with imbricated dracts, leaf-like (but smaller than the leaves) at 
the base, the root of the bracts gradually becoming smaller and 
more subulate upwards. Spike oblong, simple. Vowers gene- 
rally two from the same, or nearly the same, point, and each 
subtended by one or two subulate dracts from a quarter to 
three-quarters of an inch long. Perianth articulated upon an 
annular disc, two inches long or nearly so, fleshy, green, some- 
times tinged with purple, infundibuliform: the tube furrowed : 
the Zimé of six, moderately spreading, ovate, acute, slightly con- 
cave segments. Stamens six: filaments twice as long as the 
perianth, erect, subulate, bearing a long, linear, two-celled an- 
ther, fixed by the centre of the back, purplish-brown, afterwards 
green. Ovary oblong, furrowed, three-celled : ovules in two li- 
near rows in each cell. Style as long as the stamens, filiform. 
Stigma obscurely three-lobed. 
Fig. 1. Young and fully-expanded flower. 2. Section of ovary. 3. Portion 
of the margin of the leaf :—magnified. 
