CONVALLARIACEAE. 73 



Urginea maritima (L.) Baker, SEA ONION, SEA SQUILLS, of the Mediter- 

 ranean region, with large deep bulbs up to 6' in diameter, a slender scape 1 3 

 long bearing a many-flowered raceme, often 1' long, of slender-pedicelled, 

 purplish-white flowers, their perianth-segments i' long, the later-appearing 1 

 lanceolate leaves about 1 long and 3' wide, is grown in flower-gardens. 

 [Scilla maritima L.] 



Family 3. CONVALLARIACEAE Link. 

 LILY-OF-THE- VALLEY FAMILY. 



Scapose or leafy-stemmed herbs, with simple or branched rootstocks. 

 Flowers solitary, racemose, panicled or umbelled, regular and perfect. 

 Leaves broad, parallel-veined and sometimes with cross-veinlets, in Aspara- 

 gus and its allies reduced to scales bearing filiform or flattened branchlets 

 in their axils. Perianth inferior, 4 8-parted with separate segments, or 

 oblong, cylindric or urn-shaped and 6-lobed or 6-toothed. Stamens 6-8, 

 rarely 4, hypogynous or borne on the perianth ; anthers introrsely, ex- 

 trorsely or laterally dehiscent. Ovary 2-3-celled, superior; ovules ana- 

 tropous or amphitropous ; style slender or short ; stigma mostly 3-lobed. 

 Fruit a fleshy berry. Seeds few or numerous. Embryo small. Endosperm 

 copious. About 23 genera and 215 species, widely distributed. 



There are no native nor naturalized plants of this family in Bermuda. 



Asparagus officinalis L., ASPARAGUS, European, is occasionally grown as a 

 vegetable, but scarcely as a crop, although it apparently thrives. 



Asparagus plumosus Baker, South African, an herbaceous climber with 

 very narrow linear leaves, whitish flowers and small black berries, is cultivated 

 on arbors and porches for decoration. 



Asparagus africanus Lam., or a related species, a low climber, with linear- 

 subulate, nearly terete leaves about 5" long and \" thick, numerous in approxi- 

 mate verticils, was growing at the Agricultural Station in 1913, represented by 

 a small plant neither flowering nor fruiting, the identification, therefore, not 

 certain. 



Lefroy records the successful cultivation in 1875 of a plant called Aspara- 

 gus natalensis, but this name does not appear to have been published, botan- 

 ically; it may apply to the following species. 



Asparagus Sprengeri Eegel, of Natal, seen at Montrose in 1914, is a low 

 climber, with linear, flat, acute, whorled and scattered leaves 8"-14" long, 

 about 1" wide, the small, odorous white flowers short-racemose, the red globose 

 berries about i' in diameter. 



Aspidistra lurida Ker, ASPIDISTRA, Chinese, grown in flower-gardens, has 

 numerous, basal, tufted, rather rigid, oblong-lanceolate, acute, shining leaves 

 l-2 long, narrowed into channeled petioles; the purplish flowers are on very 

 short scapes among the petioles, the perianth with 8 parts, stamens 8, the 

 stigma peltate. 



Convallaria majalis L., LILY-OF-THE-VALLEY, European and North Ameri- 

 can, rarely planted, and reported as not succeeding well in Bermuda, has long 

 rootstocks, 2 or 3 basal, oblong or elliptic, petioled leaves 1 long or less, and a 

 1-sided raceme of white fragrant campanulate, nodding flowers, the corolla 3" 

 long. 



