II,] 



225 



A bulbous herb, with i to 3 narrow lanceolate leaves, 

 and a single terminal large yellow flower upon an erect 

 scape. 



This Order is a very large one v including many species, 

 which deviate more or less from the above Type. As 

 Sub-types, represented in Britain, observe : 



1. Butcher's Broom (Ruscus aculeatus), (the only 

 British monocotyledonous shrub), bearing dioecious 

 flowers upon flat spinose branches, which would be 

 taken for leaves were they not axillary productions, 

 springing from the axils of minute scales, which repre- 

 sent the true leaves. A young shoot is required to show 

 the true scale-like leaves, as they wither very soon. 

 Compare, with the leaves of Butcher's Broom, the 

 scale-like leaves of Asparagus, bearing a fascicle of 

 slender acicuiar branchlets (cladodid) in their axils. 

 This plant grows wild upon some parts of the British 

 coast. 



2. Herb Paris (Paris quad* if olid), anomalous amongst 

 Monocotyledons from the tetramerous symmetry (parts 

 in fours) of the flowers. The perianth is, normally, 

 double, with 4 leaves in each whorl, 8 stamens, and 4 

 carpels. The parts of the perianth vary, however, from 

 3 to 6; ! 



OBSERVE the structure of the bulb, exhibited in a cross- 

 section of Hyacinth or Onion, and of White Lily ; in the 

 two former the scales are broadly overlapping (tunicate 

 bulbs), in the last-named they scarcely overlap : the 

 bulbels in the axils of the leaves of Lilium bulbiferum, 

 common in gardens ; these are capable of independent 

 O.B. Q 



