145. LILIACEM. [15. Asphodelus. 



oblanceolate, rather fleshy, wavy, uniformly green or variegated with black, 

 sometimes bulbiferous at the ends where they touch the ground. Scape stout 

 with minute bracts. Pedicels -25- -3" long, filiform. Ovary tridymous with each 

 lobe didymous, stipitate. 



It is used in medicine as a stimulant, expectorant and diiu-etic. The squill of 

 the English Pharmacopoeia is Urginea scilla, Steinh., from the Mediterranean coasts, 

 but Urginea indica was also made official in 1914. Scilla indica and Urginea 

 indica are probably mixed up in the bazars, but the bulb of Urginea has a longer 

 neck. 



14. IPHIGENIA, Kiinth. 



Herbs with erect leafy stems rising from a coated corm. Leaves iew, 

 cauline, linear, upper bractiform. Flowers small erect solitary or 

 corymbose. Perianth 0-partite, stellately spreading, deciduous wdth 

 equal narrow-clawed segments. Stamens 6, hypogynous with short 

 flat filaments and versatile, oblong introrsely attached anthers. 

 Ovary sessile, 3-celled with minute styles connate at the base, linear 

 recurved, introrsely stigmatose. Ovules many in each cell. Capsule 

 loculicidal. Seeds subglobose ; testa thin, appressed, brown. 



1. I. indica, Kunth. Chutia chandbol, *S'. 



Erect 6-12" high with rather flexuous leafy stems. Leaves almost 

 grass-like 3-8" by -IT-- 3". Flowers purplish, 1-3 on axillary and 

 terminal bracteate peduncles, bracts like the leaves but small. Capsule 

 oblong -S-'S" long (only -25" according to F.B.I.), valves rounded, 

 depressed along the median line and somewhat beaded opposite the 

 seeds. 



Ramnagar Hills, on gravel ! Manbhum, Camp. ! Fl. r.s. Fr. Oct.-Nov. 



Corm globose, ■ 5" diam. with a neck 1-2" long and covered with brown sheaths. 

 Perianth -25- -8" long with linear-subulate segments spreading and reflexed. 

 Pedicels -5-2" long. Seeds about 16 in each cell in the larger capsules, sub- 

 globose, sometimes somewhat angled, -07" diam., falUng with part of the placenta 

 attached. 



The flowers are said to yield a red dye. 



15. ASPHODELUS, L. 



Annual or perennial herbs with slender or fleshy root-fibres. Leaves 

 all radical, linear, triquetrous or terete and fistular. Flow^ers white, 

 racemose, solitary in the bracts, perianth marcescent, 6-partite, 

 segments conniving into a tube below. Stamens 6, hypogynous ; 

 filaments dilated at the base and embracing the ovary, anthers 

 versatile with a pit on the back into which the filament is inserted. 

 Ovary 3-celled with filiform style and sub-3-lobed stigma. Ovules 

 2 collateral in each cell. Capsule usvially 1 -seeded, loculicidal. Seeds 

 3-quetrous, testa black appressed. Embryo nearly as long as the 

 cartilaginous albumen. 



1. A. tenuifolius, Cavan. Syn. A. clavatus, Roxb. 



A rather weedy-looldng annual with slender erect semi-terete fistular 

 leaves 6-12" long by under • 1" wide, and one or several erect terete 

 often much fastigiately branched scapes sometimes 3 ft. high, bearing 

 white rather scattered erect flowers about • 25" long on clavate pedicels 



1097 



