Lilies and Onions 329 
might desire to modify his couplet in the Hssay on 
Man— 
“Fixed like a plant on his peculiar spot, 
To draw nutrition, propagate, and rot.” 
I have started with one of the most highly developed 
members of the family, but it is clear from the 
evidence still left to us in our flora that the family 
had quite a humble origin in plants with poor little 
green honeyless flowers, from which condition the 
attention of various insects have induced the plants, 
in order “to merit a continuance of such esteemed 
patronage,’ as shopkeepers say, to improve their 
flowers on certain differing lines, which has led to the 
variety we now find—the family having in its world- 
wide distribution no less than 187 branches or 
genera with something lke 2500 species. If we 
examine the inconspicuous and little-known flowers of 
the Black Bryony (Tamus communis)—which is not 
included in the Lily family—it may give us an idea 
of the kind of flower possessed by the founder of the 
family. This flower is either male or female, never 
including both stamens and pistil. The green 
perianth consists of six segments in two series, 
assuming a bell shape, and upon each of these 
segments 1s fixed a stamen with the anther turned 
toward the centre of the flower. Below the female 
flower there is a three-celled ovary, with three short 
styles and two-lobed stigmas, and this develops into 
the brilliant red oblong berry which hangs in clusters 
from the hedges in autumn when the handsome 
heart-shaped leaves have become bronzed almost to 
blackness. Plants of this family are among the 
oldest known as fossils, and we know from the 
