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leaves two or ihrcc, inclosed at llie base in a while shealli, iilitbrni, 

 doited with white, keeled at boltoin, flat, or a Utile convex on the 

 back, weak, and more or less lying on the ground: scape flexuose- 

 crect, slender, about half a foot high, roundish, leiniinaled by a 

 spreading umbel of from three to seven (lowers: the valves of the 

 spathe lanceolate, acute, membranaceous, opposite, sometimes equal, 

 sometimes not, pale: the peduncles filiform, one-flowered, unequal, 

 from one to two inches in length: flowers without scent, coming out 

 successively: petals white within, purplish without, oblong, lanceo- 

 late, three lines in lenglli; the three inner blunlish; the tinee outer 

 acute, with a blunt greenish keel: anthers purple: germ three-cor- 

 nered, orreen: style while, swelled out at bottom into a bodv larger 

 than the germ, plaited at bottom; thence awl-shaped, bluntly three- 

 cornered, the length of the stamens: stigma obscurely Irifid : capsule 

 subglobular, three-cornercd : the whole plant is smooth. It is a 

 native of the Cape, flowering in November. 



Culture. — These plants are readily increased by off-sets from the 

 roots, whicli should be separated from the old roots about every third 

 year, in the sununcr season, as soon as their leaves begin to decay, 

 in the same manner as other bulbous roots. 



They may also be increased by seeds, which should l)e sown in 

 the hitler end ol' August, in a border of light bog earth. The plants 

 should remain in liiis situation till the second summer, and be then 

 taken up at the proper period and planted in beds, till they begin to 

 flower, when they should be removed into the borders. In this way 

 they are three or four years before they flower. 



The best method is, to procure the roots from the nurserymen, 

 and plant them in the beginning of the autumn, in an eastern or 

 northern border, where the soil is of a boggy quality, in patches of- 

 three or four together, in the fronts, putting them in to the depth of 

 about three or four inches. 



'J'he ofF-sets should be planted out in beds a year or two after 

 being taken off, till fit to be set out for flowering. 



A soft loamy soil, or a mixture of loam and bog earth, are the 



