XYRIDACE^. 417 



Species 12, in North America and mountains in the tropics 

 of Asia ; one or two in Japan. 



Disporum Icschcnaultianum Don 3 ! ; F.B.I, vi 360, 

 XXXII 3; Nilgiri Solomon's Seal. Stem up to 4 feet, J^ 

 inch thick at the base, tinged purple : clothed for a couple 

 of inches or more above the nodes by the persistent 

 sheathing scales. Upper, leafy part, repeatedly forked, 

 with divergence of about half a right angle. Leaves 

 broadly ovate, acuminate, 2 by 2 inches, quite glabrous, 

 thin, glossy : nerves about seven, curving from base to 

 apex, deeply indented above. Flowers drooping on stiff 

 decurved pedicels, solitary in the upper leaf-axils or 

 bunched. Sepals and petals /^ to 5^ inch, elliptic, acute 

 strongly keeled. Stamens six-erect : filaments J^ inch 

 stiff : anthers ^ inch. Style longer : stigmatic branches 

 three, ^ inch. Berry dark blue, ^ inch, very slightly 

 three-lobed. t. 264. Wight Ic. tt. 2048, 2049. 



Sholas, common on the Kodaikanal and Ootacamund downs. 

 Fyson 509, 695, 2610, 2630, 2153. Bourne 37, 795,* 4591. 



6^1?;/. Dist. Also Ceylon. Rare in the Bombay Presidency. 



The flowers face downwards and must therefore be visited from below. 

 A pocket is formed between each stamen and the keeled or saccate base 

 of the sepal or petal opposite it, and in this honey may be secreted. A 

 proboscis inserted here could not fail to touch the anthers, and be dusted 

 by pollen, since they open outwards and the filaments are very stiff. 



The true Solomon's Seal of Europe {^Ger. Weisswurz) is a polygo- 

 NA ruM, a nearly allied genus. 



XYRIDACE/E. 



A small family of about 50 species mostly belonging 

 to one genus. 



XYRIS. F.B.I. 159 I. 



Tufted herbs with stiff radical leaves and slender 

 leafless flowering-stems (scapes) ending in a small cone 

 of brown bracts from among which arise one at a time, 

 yellow flowers with three small scarious sepals, three 



27 



