LILIACER. 213 
In dry grassy places and on the borders of fields, hedgebanks, wall- 
tops, and rocks. Rather rare. Var. @ I have from Devon, Somerset, 
and Gloucester. Var. 6 from Yorkshire, Forfar, and Kincardine. One 
or other of the forms has been recorded from Hants, Sussex, and 
Kent, north to Kincardine, Forfar, Fife, and Cumberland ; but possibly 
in some of these localities A. vineale has been mistaken for it, and in 
Kincardineshire Dr. Dickie considers it an introduced plant. 
England, Scotland. Perennial. Late Summer, Autumn. 
Bulb flowering when about the size of a cherry-stone, and rarely 
larger than a sloe, generally solitary, occasionally producing small 
offsets or bulbules at the base, enveloped in whitish coats, the outer 
coat splitting into fibres especially at the base, and pale brown. 
Leaves variable in breadth, and generally speaking the broader they 
are, the more nearly parallel and the less separated are the upper and 
lower pagine ; but on cutting the leaf across isolated hollow canals 
may be perceived even in the broadest and flattest-leaved forms; on 
the underside there are prominent ribs which vary in number. The 
spathe is remarkable among the British species for its 2 very long 
foliaceous points, the longer one frequently 2 or 3 inches long, and 
quite resembling the leaves, but narrower. The 2 points of the 
spathe are united at the base, and sometimes the 2 valves of the 
spathe each carry one of these leaflike points when they separate ; 
but it very frequently happens that the rapidly increasing size of the 
head-bulbules ruptures the spathe in another direction than that of 
the junction of the two leaves of which it is composed. The flowers 
vary much in number, sometimes there are only 5 or 6, at other 
times 30 or 40. The pedicels, which are very slender and erect in 
bud, hang over when the flowers expand, so that the latter droop, but 
they again become erect and stiff in fruit. Perianth about 1 inch 
long, forming a wider bell than in any of the preceding species; the 
leaves of which it is composed are oblong, blunt, pale, suffused with 
olive, with a dull red or dark olive midrib; occasionally there is a 
rosy tinge on the flowers, which deepens when they are dried. The 
longer stamens are about equal to the perianth leaves, the yellow 
anthers just appearing beyond them. The capsule has 3 compressed 
keeled lobes enlarging upwards. The seeds are black and rugose, and 
shaped like those of most of the British species. 
I have cultivated for some years the narrow-leaved plant, from roots 
sent me from Bristol from Mr. T. B. Flower, and from Plymouth, 
communicated by Mr. T. hk. Archer Briggs, and beside these the broad- 
leaved form from Settle and Thirsk, from whence I have been favoured 
with roots by Mr. J. Tatham and Mr. J. G. Baker; and although I 
was at first inclined to think they were distinct subspecies, I am now 
convinced that they are merely varieties. All these four plants pass 
into cach other, and lie between two plants received through M. 
