CXXVII. LILIACEA. ¢ 17 
7. ASPARAGUS, Linn. 
(Asparagopsis, Kunth. ) 
Flowers jérmephrodite polygamous or unisexual. Peri ian "n sa 
ciduous, 6 distinct nearly equal spreading 1-nerved se 
Stamens 5 attached to the base of the segments; coins filiform 
or flattened; anthers versatile, usually short, the cells opomin ng in 
longitudinal slits. Ovary sessile, short, 3- celled, with 2 or very few 
ovules in each cell ; ; style simple, with a short 3-lobed stigma. Fruit 
a globular indehiscent berry. Seed usually reduced to a single one, 
with a black shining testa; albumen hard; embryo transverse.— 
Stems herbaceous, from a creeping rhizome, or shrubby much-branched 
and —- or climbing to a considerable height, often armed with 
prickles under the branches. Cladodes (formerly called leaves, but now 
eoria pe to be abortive branches) usually clustered, subu- 
ate, angular or laterally flattened, surrounded by small scarious scales 
representing the real leaves. Flowers small, solitary or 2 together in 
the axils of the scale-like real leaves, or by the reduction of flowering 
branches without cladodes forming bud qom: racemes. 
A very large genus, widely spread over warmer and temperate regions of the 
Old aes El only Australian species xcd also over pe and tar anis 
1. A. racemosus, Willd.; Baker in Journ. Linn. Soc. xiv. 628.—A 
slender but rigid much- branched straggling shrub, often dining to a 
considerable height, armed with recurved prickles under the branches. 
ways very narrow or subulate, very acute, mostly $ to nearly 1j in. 
long. Flowers mostly hermaphrodite, in racemes of 1 to 2 in., the 
long. 
nearly as long as the perianth, the filaments slightly flattened ; iiber 
small. Style short, with a spreading 9-lobed stigma. Berries small.— 
A. fasciculatus, R. Br. Prod. 281 ; ; F. Muell. Fragm. vii. 79 ; Asparagopsis 
floribunda, A. Brownei, and A. Decaisnei, Kunth, Enni: v. 98, 103, and 
numerous other s synonyms quoted by Baker 
: roe ord Islands of the Gulf of oe aaa "T R. Brown; mouth of Victoria 
River, F. M : Goulburn Islands, 4. Cunningham ; King's Sound and Collier 
ha Yai District, Martin ; et River, Gulliver ; Port Essing- 
ton, | isi: Port Darwin, Schultz, 
d. Cape York, Daemel ; (ae Sidmouth, C. Moor 
Mr as of opinion that Brown's specimen might be riii to re ke 
Asiatic Pract hie acerosus, Roxb., but it 3 it appears to me d 2 Praeses y 
Schultz; and although it has the cladodes slightl Vh mage more pro straight 
than usual in A. ra acemosus, yet not nearly so mu acl 66 di the tru 
8. EUSTREPHUS, R. Br. 
Perianth deciduous, of 6 distinct oblong segments, nearly equal 
length, the 8 outer rather firmer, valvate in the bud, and mey food. 
VOL, VII, 
