THE MONOCOTYLEDONES 



1993 



morphic or slightly zygomorphic. Often large and showy and never 

 produced in umbels. 



Fig. 1924. — Floral diagram of 

 Liliaceae. 



Fig. 1925. — Scilla campomdata. Flower 

 in longitudinal section. 



The perianth (Fig. 1925) may be open or tubular and is composed of 

 six or rarely four segments, usually in two distinct but very similar whorls, 

 imbricated or with the outer whorl valvate in the bud. 



The androecium consists of six stamens, rarely three or twelve, 

 hypogynous or adnate to, and opposite, the perianth segments. The fila- 

 ments are free or variously connate. Anthers with two loculi, opening by a 

 longitudinal slit or rarely by a terminal pore. 



The gynoecium is composed of three united carpels. Ovary superior, 

 rarely adnate to the base of the perianth tube and then semi-inferior; 

 mostly trilocular with axile placentation or rarely unilocular with parietal 

 placentation. Ovules numerous, rarely solitary. 



The fruit is a capsule, splitting loculicidally or septicidally ; sometimes a 

 fleshy berry. 



The seed is endospermic, containing a straight or curved embryo. 



The family includes about 175 genera and about 2,500 species and is 

 therefore one of the largest families of flowering plants. 



Anatomically the chief points of interest are the development of sympo- 

 dial rhizomes and the production of bulbs in which the axis may form a 

 stem bearing leaves and ending either in a single terminal flower, as in the 

 Tulip, or in a raceme as in the majority of the Lilies, or may bear first 

 a number of radical leaves and then form a scape as in the Hyacinth. 

 New bulbs may be formed in the axils of bulb scales, replacing the old 

 bulb which is usually exhausted during the production of the flower, or in 

 other cases bulbils may be formed in the axils of the foliage leaves as in 

 Lilium bulbiferum. In Culchicum a corm is formed as a swelling at the base 

 of the axis. It persists after the flowers and leaves and bears next year's 

 flowering stem as a lateral shoot in the axil of a scale leaf at its base. 



