DIOSCOREACER. 169 
NARCISSUS MOSCHATUS. Lin. 
“ Has been found wild in the adjoining parish of Meriden; and has 
been communicated to me by its discoverer, Miss Gresley, of that 
place.” (Rev. W. T. Bree, of Allesley, Warwickshire, in Mag. Nat. 
Hist. viii. 118.) ‘“ But by a second notice in the same Magazine, 
it would seem that some mistake had occurred, the plant being pos- 
sibly a whitish variety of N. Pseudo-narcissus. See Mag. Nat. Hist. 
ix. 494.” (Cyb. Brit. vol. ii. p. 446.) 
ORDER LXXXUHI—DIOSCOREACES. 
Perennial herbs or undershrubs, with large tuberous fleshy or 
woody rootstocks, and twining stems. Leaves alternate, rarely opposite, 
stalked, simple, cordate or sagittate at the base, entire or rarely pal- 
mately cleft, palmately veined, with the veins branched and anasto- 
mosing. Flowers small, diccious, in axillary spikes or racemes. 
Perianth regular, herbaceous or subherbaceous, in the male flowers 
6-partite; in the female flowers with the tube adhering to the ovary, 
and the persistent limb cut into six segments. Stamens 6, inserted 
on the base of the perianth segments, absent or rudimentary in the 
female flowers; anthers attached to the filaments by the back a little 
above the base, introrse. Ovary rudimentary in the male flowers, 
in the female combined with the tube of the perianth, 3-celled; 
ovules solitary, most commonly 2 in each cell, anatropous; styles 3, 
often combined at the base; stigma inconspicuous, entire, or rarely 
2-lobed. Fruit capsular, loculicidally 3-valved, or baccate and inde- 
hiscent, 5-celled (rarely 1-celled). Seeds as many as the ovules; 
albumen cartilaginous or hard; embryo minute, 
GENUS I—TAMUS. Linn. 
Flowers diccious. Male flowers with the perianth campanulate, 
subherbaceous; limb of 6 spreading-recurved scements: stamens 6, 
inserted on the base of the perianth segments; filaments subulate , 
anthers subglobose. Female flowers with the perianth tube not 
extending beyond the ovary; limb subherbaceous, of six spread- 
ing-recurved segments shorter than the tube: stamens extremely 
small, sterile: ovary adhering to the perianth tube, green, fusiform, 
VOL. IX. Z 
