499 



in sheaths, which, after some time, open and make Avay for the 

 flowers to come out; then they wither and dry, but remain upon the 

 stalk like those of the yellow Asphodel : they form a loose spike, 

 and there are several upon one common peduncle, which open one 

 after the other: the upper flowers stand almost upright, but the 

 lower nod ; they are hairy and of a saffron colour on the outside, 

 but smooth and yellow within. It is a native of the Cape. 



The second species, when in flower, is a foot high: the root 

 perennial, a little creeping, furnished with oblong cylindrical and 

 nearly perpendicular tubercles : the leaves radical, two-ranked, 

 sessile, equitant, vertical, spreading, dilated on the inner side at the 

 base, channelled, linear-lanceolate, pointed, entire, nerved, bright 

 green, very like those of the first, but only one-third of the size, 

 dying soon after the plant has done flowering, and not appearing 

 again for some months: the stalk erect, cylindrical, bearing one or 

 two small leaves, branched, many-flowered: general flower-slalks 

 alternate, spreading, racemose, bearing from three to five flowers, 

 cylindrical, downy: partial ones short, downy, all directed upwards, 

 single-flowered. It is a native of the Cape. 



The third seems chiefly to differ from the second in having hairy 

 leaves, a more slender and taller stem, reddish-brown, and not green 

 as in it; its branches more divaricate, the two upper lateral petals 

 more contiguous, and its flowers when closed form a slenderer and 

 more compact column: the incumbent anthers seem also to be 

 shorter and rounder: the root-leaves oblong, lanceolate, three or 

 four, about three or four inches high: the stem about three times 

 their length: the segments traversed longitudinally on the outside by 

 a brown hairy fillet; outer upper one wholly brown and pubescent 

 outwards: the flowers scentless, opening in succession, closing to- 

 wards evening: they expand in the month of July. It is a native of 

 the Cape. 



Culture. These plants may be increased by offsets, taken from 

 the heads of the roots, in the beginning of autumn, planting them in 

 pots filled with soft loamy earth, mixed with a little sea sand, and 

 when the season proves dry, placing them so as to have only the 



