CLASS TRIANDRIA CONTINUED. 



61 



convenient as a general system of arrangement, does 

 not often justify the approximation of the genera so in- 

 cluded. In the same class then with the Grasses, you 

 will meet with other plants of a very dissimilar aspect ; 

 such are the natural family of the Iris (Iuipeje), in- 

 cluding the Ixia of the Cape of Good Hope, and 

 the Gladiolus, common to the same country, and 

 also to the south of Europe ; our garden Crocus, 

 which affords the Saffron of commerce, likewise takes 

 its place here. In these plants there is, however, a 

 close relation with the Lilies of the class Hexandria. 

 Like them, they are destitute of a true calyx, and 

 have a corolla of six parts, all the parts or petals 

 nearly alike, except in the Ms, which has three 

 larger and differently colored reflected petals, in many 

 species furnished with a central tuft of fringe, com- 

 monly compared to a beard ; and three erect, and 

 smaller, conniving petals approaching the stigma, 

 which also resembles three other petals ; its stigmata 

 or divisions are arched outwards, and under their three 

 concavities you find the three stamens, formed as 

 usual. The whole of these parts of the flower are 

 seated upon the summit of the germ, which eventually, 

 as in the Lilies, becomes a triquetrous or three-sided 

 capsule, divided into three cells, and each cell filled 

 with rows of flat, triangular, brownish seeds. The 

 leaves of nearly all the genus are ensiform, or sword- 

 shaped, and make some approach, in the simplicity of 

 their structure, to those of grass ; they appear, indeed, 

 to be like sheathing grass-leaves folded up and graft- 

 ed together, so that their position is rendered vertical ; 

 they are thus also thickened, and have both their 

 surfaces nearly similar; but in the quadrangular leav- 

 ed Ms (I. tuberosa), as in the Gladiolus pterophyl- 

 lus (or winged-leaved Corn-flag), every apparent leaf 

 may, in fact, be considered as two leaves ingraited 



