BUNCH-FLOWER FAMILY. 399 
Family 18. MELANTHACEAE R. Br. Prodr. 1: 272. 18ro. 
BUNCH-FLOWER FAMILY. 
Leafy-stemmed herbs (some exotic genera scapose), with rootstocks or 
rarely with bulbs, the leaves broad or grass-like, parellel-veined, the veins often 
connected by transverse veinlets. Flowers perfect, polygamous, or dioecious, 
regular, racemose, panicled or solitary. Perianth of 6 separate or nearly separ- 
ate, usually persistent segments. Stamens 6, borne on the bases of the per- 
janth-segments. Anthers small, 2-celled, oblong or ovate, or confluently 
t-celled and cordate or reniform, mostly versatile and extrorsely dehiscent (in- 
trorse in 7Zofteldia and Abama). Ovary 3-celled, superior or rarely partly in- 
ferior; ovules few or numerous in each cavity, anatropous or amphitropous. 
Styles 3, distinct, or more or less united. Fruit a capsule with septicidal 
dehiscence (loculicidal in Adama and Uvularia). Seeds commonly tailed or 
appendaged. Embryo small, in usually copious endosperm. 
About 36 genera and 140 species, widely distributed. 
Flowers numerous in terminal erect racemes or panicles. 
Anthers oblong or ovate, 2-celled. 
Anthers introrsely dehiscent. 
Capsule septicidal; flowers involucrate by 3 bractlets. 1. Tofieldia. 
Capsule loculicidal; flowers not involucrate. 2. Abama. 
Anthers extrorsely dehiscent. 
Flowers perfect. 
Leaves basal, oblanceolate; seeds numerous. 3. Xerophyllum. 
Stem very leafy; leaves linear; seeds few. 4. Helonias. 
Flowers dioecious: stem leafy. 5. Chamaelirium. 
Anthers cordate or reniform, confluently r-celled. 
Plants glabrous. 
Perianth-segments not gland-bearing. 
Flowers perfect; perianth-segments obtuse. 6. ‘Chrosperma. 
Flowers polygamous; perianth-segments acuminate. 7. Stenanthium. 
Perianth-segments bearing 1 or 2 glands, or a spot. 8. Zygadenus. 
Stem and inflorescence pubescent. 
Perianth-segments clawed, free from the ovary. 9. Melanthium. 
Perianth-segments not clawed, adnate to the base of the ovary. 10, Veratrum. 
Flowers solitary, terminal or opposite the leaves, drooping. 1. Uvularia. 
1. TOFIELDIA Huds. Fl. Angl. Ed. 2, 157. 1778 
Perennial herbs, with short erect or horizontal rootstocks, fibrous roots, slender erect 
stems leafless above or nearly so, linear somewhat 2-ranked and equitant leaves clustered at 
the base, and small perfect white or green flowers in aterminal raceme. Pedicels bracted at 
the base, solitary or clustered. Flowers usually involucrate by 3 scarious somewhat united 
bractlets below the calyx. Perianth-segments oblong or obovate, subequal, persistent, gland- 
less. Stamens 6; filaments filiform; anthers ovate, sometimes cordate, introrse. Ovary ses- 
sile, 3-lobed at the summit; styles 3, short, recurved. Capsule 3-lobed, 3-beaked, septicid- 
ally dehiscent to the base, many-seeded. Seeds tailed or appendaged in most species. 
[Dedicated to Tofield, an English correspondent of Hudson. | 
About 15 species, natives of the north temperate zone, 1 or 2in the Andes of South America. 
Besides the following another occurs in the southeastern States and two in northwestern America. 
Stem glabrous; seeds unappendaged. 1. ZT. palustris. 
Stem viscid- pubescent; seeds appendaged. 
Capsule oblong, 3'’ high; perianth segments thin. 2. T. glutinosa. 
Capsule ovoid, ris "9" high; perianth-segments rigid in fruit. 3. T. racemosa. 
Tofieldia palustris Huds. Scottish 
Asphodel. (Fig. 966.) 
Tofieldia palustris Huds. Fl. Angl. Ed. 2, 157. 1778. 
Glabrous, stem slender, scape-like, leafless or bearing 
a few leaves near the base, 2’-10/ tall. Jeaves tufted, 
44/-4/ long, %4//-2’’ wide; raceme oblong or subglobose in 
flower, dense, elongating to an inch or less in fruit, the 
lower flowers first expanding; pedicels usually solitary, 
minutely involucrate, %4’’-1/’ long in fruit; flowers 
greenish white, 1/’ broad; perianth-segments obovate. 
obtuse, much shorter than the oblong-globose minutely 
beaked capsule; seeds oblong, unappendaged. 
Greenland and Labrador to Alaska, south to Quebec, the 
shores of Lake Superior, and the Canadian Rocky Moun- 
tains. Also in Europe and Asia. Summer. 
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