152 HEXANDRIA MONOGYNIA, Asparagus, 
fascicled, incurved, channelled on the back. Racemes :% 
thorn-axillary over the ligneous branchlets. 
Sans. Suta-moolee. 
Hind. Sada-bori. 
Beng. Sut-mooli. 
A native of various parts of India. Flowering time 
the cold season, when it perfumes the air to a consider. 
able distance with the delightful fragrance ofits flowers ; 
seeds ripe in March. 
Root consisting of many, fusiform, smooth, perennial 
tubers. Stems scandent, slender, woody smooth ; young 
shoots striated. Thorns solitary, recurved, short, strong 
and sharp. Leaves fascicled, filiform, incurved, three- 
sided. Racemes generally simple,often crowded together ; 
in the axills of the thorns, over the slender woody 
branchlets. Bractes cordate, and scariose, several 
¥ 
about the base of the raceme, they are one-flowered. 
Pedicelis diverging, jointed at the middle, one-flower- 
ed. Flowers very numerous, small, pure white. Petals 
oblong, reflexed. Filaments incurved, rather shorter. 
than the petals. Anthers purple. Germ superior, three- 
lobed, thrée-celled, each containing about four ovula, at- 
tached to the axis. Style short. Stigma three-cleft. 
Berry three-lobed, two are generally small, and abortive; _ : 
when ripe red, and covered with a small portion of pulp. 
Seeds solitary, black. Embryo transverse, and curved in — 
a serpentine manner in the back of an ample, hard perise 
perm, nearly opposite to the umbilicus. i 
4. A. curillus. Buch. 
_ Herbaceous, leaning. Thorns solitary, recurved. 
Leaves tern, three-sided, acute, incurved. Racemes la- 
teral, few-flowered. Flowers long-pedicelled. Petals 
cuneiform, expanding. 
A native of Nepal, from whence Dr, Buchanan sent 
seeds thereof to the Botanic Garden at Calcutta, where it 
