LILIACE. 183 
Rootstock thick, creeping, thickly clothed with membranous lance- 
olate scales, and emitting thick fleshy root-fibres. Stem usually 
somewhat geniculate, 9 inches to 2 feet long in the wild plant, 
much branched. Cladodia } to } inch long, in fascicles of three to 
six or more in the axils of the minute scalelike scarious leaves, which 
have an herbaceous spur at the base. Flowers solitary or in pairs, 
drooping, axillary; peduncles recurved, articulated to the pedicel 
(which looks like a drawn-out base of the perianth). Bell of the 
perianth about 4 inch long, yellowish-olive with reddish streaks, ‘The 
fruit of the coast plant I have never seen, for though Mr. Charles 
Bailey was good enough to send me living plants from Cornwall, they 
all died in the severe winter of 1866-1867. In the garden asparagus 
the berries are red, about the size of a red currant; seeds lenticular- 
orbicular or angular, black with a slightly shining testa, rugose when 
dry, about the size of hemp-seed, but flat. 
The young shoots of this plant form the asparagus of the table; 
they are very thick and succulent, and sparingly clothed with tri- 
angular deciduous leaves, very much larger than the persistent leaves 
at the base of the cladodia. 
I have seen no specimens of Asparagus prostratus (Du Mortier); but 
M. Thielens, to whom I sent a specimen of the Cornwall Asparagus, 
writes that he believes it to be A. prostratus (Dum.), but cannot be 
certain in the absence of the seeds, which I have been unable to 
procure. 
Asparaqus. 
French, Asperge officinale. German, Gemeiner Spargel, 
This plant has been cultivated as an esculent since the time of the Romans, and is 
universally esteemed as such at the present day. The wild plant of the seashore 
from which our cultivated Asparagus is derived, is strongly diuretic, a property 
shared in some degree by the blanched shoots of the garden vegetable. Its active 
principle is an alkaloid called asparagin. For its successful culture Asparagus requires 
a very light rich soil, and abundant manuring. It is usually grown in raised beds 
about four or six feet in diameter, and with trenches two feet deep between them. 
Upon these beds the seedlings are planted about a foot apart, or the seeds are sown 
and the young plants afterwards weeded to the same distance. They require an 
annual top-dressing of finely divided manure, applied in the winter. The heads of 
Asparagus often attain a very large size, and 110 heads have been known to weigh 
35 pounds, 
GENUS VIL—RUSCUS. Linn. 
Flowers dicecious by abortion. Perianth subherbaceous, marcescent- 
persistent, of 6 free leaves which are at length spreading, the inner 
leaves smaller than the outer ones. Stamens 3; filaments completely 
combined into an urceolate tube which is inserted on the base of the 
perianth segments; anthers in the male flower opposite the exterior 
