194 ENGLISH BOTANY. 
I am indebted to Mr. T. B. Flower and the Hon. J. L. Warren for 
recent specimens of this plant. 
Yellow Star of Bethlehem. 
French, Gagée grisitre. German, Gelber Goldstern, 
GENUS XI.—ORNITHOGALUM. Linn. 
Perianth coloured, white (rarely yellow), cupshaped- or widely 
funnelshaped-rotate ; perianth leaves 6, free, subpersistent and mar- 
cescent, more or less spreading, without a nectariferous pore at the 
base; the outer leaves generally herbaceous on the back. Stamens 6, 
adhering to the base of the perianth leaves; anthers affixed by their 
back to the filaments, extrorse. Style trigonous; stigma minute, tri- 
gonous. Capsule ovoid or obscurely trigonous, loculicidally 3-valved. 
Seeds few or several, subglobose or angulated; testa hard, black or 
fuscous, rugose when dry. 
Herbs with tunicated bulbs and linear or linear-lorate radical leaves 
with a white midrib, or rather broad channelled or flat concolorous 
leaves. Flowers rather large, opening in the forenoon and only in 
fine weather, on a leafless scape, in a corymb or raceme. 
The name of this genus comes from the Greek words dpc, a bird, and yda\a, milk, 
or pigeon’s milk, for which “‘gowks” are despatched on the Feast of All Fools, the 
1st of April. The same word is used by Dioscorides for the Star of Bethlehem 
plant. 
SPECIES I-ORNITHOGALUM NUTANS. Linn. 
Puate MDXXIIT. 
Reich. Ic. Fl. Germ. et Helv. Vol. X. Tab. CCCCLXXIII. 
Billot, F). Gall. et Germ. Exsicc. No. 2917. 
Myogalum nutans, Link. Kunth, Enum. Pi. Vol. IV. p. 348. Parl. FI. Ital. Vol. II. 
. 450. 
Alcea ner, Reich. F). Germ. Excurs. p. 110; and Ic. Fl. Germ. et Hely. Vol. X. 
p- 16. 
Bulb subsolitary, producing very few offsets, so that the plant does 
not grow in large clumps. Leaves not decayed at the time of flowering, 
strapshaped-linear, narrowed from beyond the middle to the apex, 
widely channelled above, light glaucous green with a rather broad 
white central stripe, glabrous. Flowers few, slightly drooping, in a 
lax secund raceme; pedicels shorter than the flowers, slightly recurved, 
becoming more soin fruit. Bracts longer than the pedicels. Perianth 
leaves greenish-white, broadly green on the back, especially the three 
outer ones. Filaments petaloid, connivent, strapshaped-oblong, 3- 
cuspidate at the apex, the lateral cusps as long as the anther. 
