138 ENGLISH BOTANY. 
together ; and they may be easily found at any time in the leaves of the very common 
and hardy Iris Germanica, almost always at hand in cottage and suburban gardens. 
These crystals are very distinct prisms, the faces and angles well marked, and each 
crystal usually larger than one of the true raphides. The crystal prisms are not only 
beautiful in themselves, but such capital objects for experiments with polarised light 
as to be well fitted to afford, in this way, many occasional and pleasant half-hours 
with the microscope. Certain common Liliacew also contain the crystal prisms 
plentifully. They occur often in the form of crosses in the bulb-scales of some onions, 
as the eschalot, but are smaller than in most Iridacew. These crystals are very 
easily examined in any of the plants mentioned. 
GENUS I—SISYRINCHIUM. Linn. 
Perianth regular, petaloid; tube very short, either not extending 
beyond the ovary, or, if extending beyond it, straight; limb 6-partite, 
the segments all nearly similar, spreading or ascending. Stamens 3, 
inserted on the tube of the perianth; filaments united into a tube, or 
their bases cohering in a ring; anthers affixed by the base. Ovary 
adhering to the tube of the perianth, subglobular-trigonous, green; 
style short; stigmas 3, involute-filiform, entire. Capsule parchment- 
like, subglobular, bluntly trigonous, loculicidally 5-valved. Seeds 
numerous, subglobose or angulated, with a hard testa. 
Herbs with roots consisting of tufts of wiry fibres, but with no con- 
spicuous rootstock. Stems often 2-edged. Leaves commonly ensi- 
form and equitant, rarely setaceous. Flowers rather small, brightly 
coloured, enclosed in bivalve subherbaceous spathes. 
Xwovpiyxwoy is a name given by Theophrastus to some bulbous plant. 
SPECIES L-SISYRINCHIUM BERMUDIANA. Linn. 
Pirate MCCCCXCI. 
S. anceps, Bab. Man. Brit. Bot. ed. vi. p. 536. 
Stem winged, leafless, or of one or two leaves. Leaves narrow, 
grasslike. Perianth segments oblong-obovate, emarginate and mu- 
cronate, blue within, bluish-white on the exterior. 
In boggy places. Very rare. In several places about Woodford, 
Galway, but possibly not native. In the ‘ Cybele Hibernica,” p. 291, the 
following stations are given: ‘In alow meadow on the bank of a 
stream called the Woodford River, four miles from Woodford, and one 
mile from Lough Derg, near the police barrack at Rossmore. In a 
piece of mountain pasture in the opening of a wood on a hill two 
miles north-east of Woodford, about 300 feet above the sea; also 
