126 SUMMER FLOWERS. 



gaze on their own drooping eyes reflected in the crystal calm/^ 

 This plant has a good deal the aspect of the Sweet Flag {Aco- 

 rus Calamus) ,excl\idmg the flowers, however, which are remark- 

 ably showy and petaloid,instead of being reduced to the appear- 

 ance of green closely packed scales. The plant has a thick, 

 horizontal root-stock or rhizome, as it is called, from which grow 

 up the long sword-shaped leaves, three or four feet long, stiff" 

 eiect and of a glaucous green, equitant or alternately bestri- 

 ding each other at the base, those on the flower-stem (which 

 does not grow so high as the leaves) being shorter. The 

 flowers, which are large and showy, are produced two or three 

 in succession, from the axils of sheathing bracts near the up- 

 per part of the stem ; they are erect, of a bright yellow colour, 

 the three outer or sepaline segments of the perianth being 

 large and reflexed, broadly ovate, contracted into a claw at the 

 base, and the three inner or petaline divisions, small, oblong, 

 and erect. There are three stamens opposite the sepaline seg- 

 ments, and over these the petal-like appendages of the three 

 stigmas are arched; these appendages are longer and larger 

 than the petaline segments, yellow, two-cleft at top, and 

 toothed on the edge. The ovary is inferior, becoming a three- 

 cornered, oblong capsule. Many beautiful garden plants belong 

 to this family. Iris itself being an extensive and ornamental 

 genus, besides which there are Gladiolus, Ixia, Crocus^ and 

 numerous others of equal beauty. 



The Orchidaceous family is a group of plants having, like 

 the foregoing, an inferior ovary, but singularly irregular 

 flowers. It is a very extensive and, including the exotic spe- 

 cies, a remarkably varied group of plants. Our illustration 

 among summer flowers, the Bee Ophrys,"^ or Bee Orchis, as it 

 is more commonly called, gives but a faint idea of the gro- 

 tesque beauty of many tropical species. The peculiar charac- 



* Ophrifs apifera—?\&ie 20 C. 



