LILIACE^. 307 



white segments, and are arranged in erect branching racemes. 

 They open in July and August Native of mountain pastures 

 in many parts of central and southern Europe. 



V. nigrum {Black Helkbore). — This is even more stately and 

 striking than the last species. The leaves are similar in form, 

 and are plaited and ribbed in the same manner, but are broader 

 and bolder every way. The racemes are less dense and more 

 freely branched, and the flowers are blackish-bro\\'n. The 

 flowers open in July and August, and the plant inhabits simi- 

 lar habitats to the last, but is more widely diffused in southern 

 Europe. 



Other species of Veratrum worthy of a place where their 

 characteristics are valued, are V. viride, with acutely-elliptical 

 much-plaited hairy leaves and green flowers, and V. vi?'gi?iiao?i, 

 with simple racemes of rather large brown flowers, both flower- 

 ing about the same time as the two first described, and both 

 from North America, where viride is named Poke or Swamp 

 Hellebore. 



Yucca. — This is no herbaceous genus — indeed it is in some 

 species rather arborescent than herbaceous ; but not a few of the 

 forms comprised in it are hardy, and adapted by stature and 

 appearance to association with herbaceous plants, and to other 

 special purposes noticed in these pages. They are not free- 

 flowering plants; and there is no certainty of enjoying their 

 flowers often in a lifetime, especially in the northern districts of 

 Britain. Their chief recommendation for ornamentation is 

 their foliage and style of growth, both of which are peculiar 

 amongst hardy plants. The Y. gloriosa is the best known of 

 the family in British gardens, and furnishes a good general idea 

 of the appearance of the whole of the members ; but some are 

 less arborescent, making little or no stem — others are the oppo- 

 site, and make considerable stems with greater rapidity than 

 that species; but in all there is the same character of leaves, linear 

 and aloe-like, and more or less rigid, var>'ing chiefly in length, 

 breadth, and substance, in the relative direction they assume 

 with regard to that of the stem, whether they are erect or 

 ascending, horizontal or more or less recurved — and in the nature 

 of the margin, whether it is entire or furnished with thread-like 

 appendages. In all, the flowers are nearly the same in colour, 

 yellowish-white, and are produced in simple or branching ra- 

 cemes. They are easily cultivated, preferring light, rich, sandy, 

 well-drained soil, and succeeding badly in heavy clay, especially 

 if wet. They are propagated by suckers, which in some species 

 are freely produced after flowering, and in others more or less 

 freely at all times. Those with simple unbranching stems, and 



