LILIALES.J LILIACEiE. 201 



them is still wanted. Under these circumstances it seems to me better not to meddle 

 \vith the supposed Orders or Suborders that have of late years been proposed, but to 

 gather together, in tolerably natural groups, under the Order of Lilies, everything that 

 does not belong to the other parts of the LiUal Alliance. It will be a task hereafter 

 for some botanist, with ample materials and good general views, to study the details of 

 the structure of these interesting plants, and out of those details to form an intelligible 

 and sclid classification. In the meanwhile, a few general remarks upon such gi-oups 

 as are here adopted are all that it will be useful to bring forward. 



The favourite distuictions among the majority of systematic botanists are those by 

 which the Liliaceee, Asphodeleae, and Aspai-agese or Smilacese of authors are said to be 

 known. Brown thought to distinguish them by then- seeds and fruit ; ascribing to the 

 first a spongy and dilated or wuiged seedcoat and a capsule, rarely a berry ; to the 

 second, a black brittle seedcoat ; and, to the third, a membranous seedcoat and berry. 

 With regard to the colour of the seedcoat or its textm'e, I must remark firstly, that one 

 would be slow to recognise such a peculiarity as a valid distinction even of genera, and 

 that as an ordinal characteristic, it is still less admissible ; that exceptions to such a 

 character appear, as might be expected, in all du'ections, and prove it to be wholly 

 illusory. By the gi-eat botanist just mentioned, the distmction of Smilacese was strength- 

 ened by adding to its chai'acter an embryo remote from the hilum, and it is probable 

 that this circumstance deserves more attention than it has hitherto received ; never- 

 theless, Streptopus, which is expressly named by Brown as one of his Smilacese, has 

 the embryo next the hilum ; so that this character also is untenable. Barthng, who 

 retains Smilacese, adds to the distmction of the Order a minute embryo, but then he 

 admits such genera as Asparagus and Drymophila, in which the embryo is the same as 

 that of Asphodelese. Bernhardi assigns to his Tulipacese anthers attached to the 

 filament by a fine point lodged in a narrow canal, and an inflorescence without mem- 

 branous spathes ; or, as Jussieu expressed it, Flores nudi, while he gives Asphodelese, 

 anthers attached to the filament by a broad base, and membranous bracts, combming 

 moreover under the name of AUiacese, the Asphodelese, Hypoxids, Rushes, 

 Amaryllids and others, a proposition in which I think no judicious botanist would 

 concur. But the character derived from the anther of Tulipacese, if vaUd, which 

 Kunth denies, is trifiing ; and as to the pecuHarities asserted to exist in the inflores- 

 cence of these plants, such membranous bracts do not exist in Eucomis among Aspho- 

 delese more than in FritUlaria persica among Tulipacese, while the Gageas have all the 

 habit of the former group, and if it were otherwise it woiild be idle to propose such 

 a character for the mark of a natural Order. M. Adrien de Jussieu has lately 

 reduced these Orders to two, viz. LiHacese and Smilacese, giving the former an midi- 

 vided style and parallel veined leaves, while the latter have a triple style and reticulated 

 leaves. In this respect he appears to adopt the \'iews which are taken in the present 

 work. That good and high gi-ovmds of distinction will one day be found for some at 

 least of the groups here admitted is probable ; but they have not yet been disco- 

 vered, nor is it likely that they will be imtil the true nature of the o^•ules, the position 

 of their foramen, the dii-ection of the emijryo, and similar circumstances shall have 

 been mquired into \vith scrupulous accuracy. In the meanwhile the following may be 

 taken as the chief pecuharities of the sections now admitted. 



TuLiPE.E are the Liha of Jussieu, a couple of his genera being excluded, and they 

 may be justly regarded as the type of the Order of LiUes. Bulbs, annual stems httle 

 or not at all branched, flowers usually large and gaily coloured, without membranous 

 spathes, but axillary to leaves but little changed, the calyx and corolla and then." parts 

 scarcely miited, although often arranged m a tube, anthers swinging Ughtly by the 

 fine di-awn pomt of a stiff" filament, and finally a dry seed vessel, separate the group 

 from all that follow. They are among the gayest of our garden flowers, as Tulips, 

 Fritillaries, and Dogs' Tooth Violets testify ; one of them indeed, the LiUum chalcedoni- 

 cum, a plant that covers the plains of Syria with its scarlet flowers, is most memorable 

 from havhig been selected by our Saviom' as the subject of allusion in his sermon on the 

 Mount. The Gloriosa, a tuberous plant from India, hardly belongs to them. 



The HEMEROCALLE.E or Day Lilies, diff'er from the last in nothing except their 

 calyx and corolla being so joined to each other as to form a tube of conspicuous length, 

 and in their want of a bulb in many instances. The Agapanthus, so commonly culti- 

 vated m vases for decorating architectural gardens, and the fragrant Tuberose, are the 

 more remarkable among them ; but Funkia, Hemerocallis, Blandfordia, and the Velthie- 

 mias and Tritomas, are also species of familiar occurrence. Phormium, which yields 

 the celebrated flax of N. Zealand, with its hard perennial leaves and panicles of yellow 

 flowers, must be considered to connect the present division with that ot Aloes. 



There is so httle to separate Aloine^, or Aloes, from the Day Lilies, that scarcely 

 anything can be named except their succulent foliage ; and even that disappears m 



