Lilies and Onions 329 
wards distributed among the female flowers. In 
spite of their lack of colour, the flowers cannot be 
said to be inconspicuous, and they are more easily 
found by a pleasant odour which evidently gives the 
bees confidence in the matter of honey, which they 
duly find on dipping their tongues into the lower 
part of the flower. The Hive bee, the Leaf-cutting 
bee, and several other of the smaller species are the 
chief patrons of Asparagus, some of them being merely 
pollen - collectors, but having collected in the male 
flowers, they visit the females under the impression 
that they can add to their load there, but they leave 
a trifle instead, and effect fertilisation. There is no 
bulb to Asparagus, but the creeping rootstock is thick 
and fleshy. Similar creeping rootstocks are found in 
Butcher’s Broom, Solomon’s Seal, Lily of the Valley, 
Bog Asphodel, and Herb Paris; so that it must not 
be taken for granted that all the Lily family have 
bulbs. It is not difficult to understand the evolution 
of both corms and bulbs from such rootstocks. 
~ The Butcher's Broom (Ruscus 
aculeatus) is another rare plant 
found naturally only in the southern 
half of England, but usually in 
some quantity where it does occur. 
Itis an evergreen shrub, as already 
stated, and like Asparagus it has 
given up developing true leaves— 
why, is not clear. We may sur- 
mise that at one period in its 
history its leaves and stems were 
so persistently browsed down that the former were 
of no use to it, so it took to flattening out short 
Butcher's Broom 
