224 ENGLISH BOTANY 
bling those of Narthecium Ossifragum in miniature. Flowering stem 
with a few similar leaves at the base, and occasionally a single bract- 
like leaf near the middle, 2 to 8 inches high, terminated by a dense 
spikelike raceme from } to } inch long in flower, and } to 1 inch long 
in fruit, the lower flower often separated by a short interval from the 
others. Pedicels at first very short, but lengthening slightly in fruit, 
though never as long as the capsule. Bracts scarious, 3-lobed; the 
middle lobe triangular; the lateral lobes blunt, often truncate or 
notched. Perianth segments about 4'5 inch long, somewhat spreading 
in flower, connivent in fruit. Capsule about the size of white mustard 
seed or a little larger, subglobular, 3-lobed, longer than the perianth 
segments, splitting at the septa into 3 valves, each one tipped by one 
of the short recurved styles. Seeds very minute, brown, rough, 
slightly shining, oval-oblong, half-ovoid-trigonous. 
Reichenbach figures and Mr. Bentham describes what I have never 
seen in the British plant, a 2- or 3-lobed bracteole within the bract at 
the base of the pedicel. In all the very numerous specimens I have 
examined, the bracteoles are united to the sides of the bract, so that it 
appears to be a 3-lobed bract at the point where the pedicel joins the 
rachis 
Scottish Asphodel. 
French, Tofieldie a collerette. German, Sumpf Tofieldie. 
Tree II.—COLCHICE 
Perianth leaves free, with very long claws, or with the claws 
cohering into a very long tube. 
Rootstock an oblique-based corm, rarely a “ bulb” (Zndlicher). 
GENUS XIX—COLCHICUM. Tournef. 
Perianth coloured, funnelshaped, with a very long slender tube and 
a 6-partite limb, withering. Stamens 6, inserted on the tube of the 
perianth; anthers affixed by the back, versatile. Styles 3, filiform, 
very long; stigmas slender. Capsule fusiform, 3-lobed, septicidally 
3-valved. Seeds numerous, subglobose; testa brown, rugose. 
Herbs with oblique-based corms contained in brown or dark brown 
coats. Flowers in most of the species appearing in autumn after the 
leaves have decayed; the leaves produced at the close of winter, 
and capsule coming above ground in the following spring. Flowers 
lilac or pink varying to white, resembling in form those of a Crocus. 
This genus is so called on account of its being found in Colchis, a country of Asia, 
said to be full of poisons, and of this among the rest. 
