Asparagus. .HEXANDRIA MONOGYNIA. 151 
time the close of the rains, and the beginning of the cold 
season ; seed ripe in December. 
Root perennial, composed of many, fusiform, succulent: 
tubers. Stems erect, flexuous, round. Branches numer- 
ous, alternate, expanding, when old round, while young 
angular. Bark smooth, and green on the young parts; 
on the old, a little ferruginous. Thorns solitary, under 
the branches ; branchlets and leaves, recurved, strong,and 
sharp. Leaves three-fold, acerose, three-sided, polished, 
acute. Stipules solitary; between the three leaves, branch, 
orbranchlet and thorn triangular, scariose, permanent. Ra- 
cemes lateral, generally solitary, simple, and short. Flow- 
ers pure white, delightfully fragrant. Petals equal, at first 
expanding, afterwards recurvate. Filaments five, in- 
curved, inserted on the petals considerably above their 
insertion, and shorter than them. Germ three-lobed. Style 
short, Stigma three-cleft, with lobes recurved. Berry 
nearly round, about the size of a pea, rarely more than 
one of the lobes of the germ comes to maturity, and in that 
Case it is enlarged a little on one side, with the two abor- 
tive lobes, smooth, when ripe red, one-celled. Seed sin- 
gle, spherical, attached to the axis, which is now on one 
side by the abortion of two of the lobes of the germ, In- 
tegument, a single lucid, somewhat dotted, black crust, 
adhering firmly to the perisperm. Perisperm conform 
to the seed, horny, greenish-white. Embryo slender, e- 
qually thick on every part, white, arched in a large semi- 
circle round the circumference of the seed most remote 
from the umbilicus, 
A charming shrub, and easily distinguished by its ace- 
rose three-fold, three-sided, polished, acute, permanent 
leaves, 
_ 8. A. racemosus, Ed. sp. Willd. 2, 152. yin. oe 
—— scandent. Thorns solitary, recurved: as wv 
