220 ENGLISH BOTANY. 
is considered a certain cure. An old couplet records the estimation in which it was 
held by our forefathers :— 
“ Fat leeks in Lide, and Ramsons in May, 
And all the year after physicians may play.” 
Trive II].—ANTHERICEZ. 
Perianth leaves free or coherent at the base. Seeds globular or 
triquetrous, with the testa commonly black. 
tootstock not bulbous, producing fasciculated fibres. Leaves all 
radical, or on a leafy stem, commonly linear. 
GENUS XVI—SIMETHIS. Kunth. 
Flowers perfect, jointed to the pedicel below the base. Terianth 
coloured, widely funnelshaped or funnelshaped-rotate; perianth leaves 
6, free, except at the very base, deciduous, spreading, 5- to 7-nerved. 
Stamens 6, free from the base of the perianth leaves; filaments woolly 
in the lower half. Style filiform ; stigma entire. Capsule subglobose, 
3-lobed, loculicidally 3-valved, 3-celled. Seeds 2 in each cell of the 
ovary, one above the other, or (by abortion) only 1; testa black, 
furnished with an arillus. 
An herb with a nonbulbous rootstock producing a tuft of fasci- 
culated root-fibres. Leaves all radical, grasslike. Scape bearing a 
panicle with corymbose branches, furnished with leaflike bracts at the 
base of the lower branches of the panicle. Flowers white, purple on 
the outside. 
This genus is named after Simethis, a Sicilian nymph. 
SPECIES I—SIMETHIS BICOLOR. Kuith. 
Pirate MDXLI. 
Billot, Fl. Gall. et Germ. Exsice. No. 1552. 
S. planifolia, Woods, in Engl. Bot. Suppl. No. 2952. Gren. & Godr. Fl. de Fr. Vol. IIT. 
Morgagnia bicolor, Buban. Parl. Fl. Ital. Vol. IT. p. 606. 
Phalangium planifolium, Pers. Syn. Vol. I. p. 367. 
P. bicolor, D.C. Fl. Fr. Vol. III. p. 209. 
Anthericum planifolium, Linn. Mant. IT. p. 224. 
A. bicolor, Desf. Fl. Atl. Vol. I. p. 304. 
Bulbine planifolia, Rim. & Sch. Bert. Fl. Ital. Vol. IV. p. 181. 
The only known species. 
On heaths near Bournemouth, Dorsct, amongst firs. On Abbey 
