Victorian Plants. 429 



1839. Clusters of flowers in a whorled panicle. 



Tall ; leaves long, tough, flat or channelled, from broad- to 

 narrow-linear, always excised and sometimes additionally 

 denticulated at the summit ; flower-stem compressed ; 

 panicle with occasionally simply opposite branches or 

 even reduced to a spike ; primary bracts narrow, often 

 elongated and pungent ; sepals outside towards the 

 summit brownish or sometimes blackish ; petals yellow ; 

 stamens very short ; style obliterated ; fruit ovate- 

 globular, smooth, pointed ; seeds trigonoiis-ellipsoid. 



X. longifolia. 



Clusters of flowers in a spike or headlet ... ... 1840 



1840. Petals upwards bright-yellow. 



Dwarf ; leaves usually short, flat or channelled, often blunt, 

 seldom twisted ; bracts abbreviated ; flowers quite small ; 

 clusters of staminate flowers arranged in a short usually 

 interrupted and rarely ramified spike ; clusters of pistil- 

 late flowers singly solitary ; sepals and petals very small, 

 blunt, somewhat succulent, equal in height, the sepals 

 also yellow but sometimes purplish outside ; stamens very 

 short ; fruit small, slightly wrinkled. X. glauca. 



Petals upwards whitish. 



Tall ; leaves usually much elongated ; clusters of flowers 

 very dense, two or more separately superposed or some- 

 times singly solitary or occasionally forming a cylindric 

 uninterrupted spike ; bracts breaking up into capillary 

 fringes ; sepals and petals membranous, the latter slightly 

 yellowish, downward connate into a tube, the sepals 

 pellucid and but faintly colored ; fruit smooth ; seed 

 trigonous-ovate. X. lencocephala. 



1841. Flowers comparatively large. 



Almost prostrate ; leaves long, linear, channelled, excised 

 and sometimes additionally denticulated at the summit; 

 flowers in an almost sessile spreading panicle, fragrant, 

 singly dispersed or less frequently two or three together ; 

 stalklets mostly very conspicuous ; sepals and petals 

 transparent, upward gradually much pointed; stamens 

 very much shorter ; fruit longitudinally somewhat 

 streaked ; seeds trigonous-ovate, brownish outside. 



X. effusa. 



Flowers minute ... 1842 



