UVULAKIA. 



253 



pit at base, and deciduous. The anthers of the 6 stamens are 

 adnate, extrorse, and longer than the filaments. 



The Ovary, as in Erythronium, is triple, and the short 

 style bears 3 long, distinct stigmas. The fruit is also a cap- 

 sule, but with fewer seeds, and the valves open directly into 

 the cells, that is, they are loculicidal (locula, a cell, cido, I 

 cut). A section of the seed largely, 

 magnified shows an embryo with 

 one cotyledon in much albumen. 



The Name, Uvuldria, was 

 conferred on this genus by Lin- 

 naeus for the fancied resemblance 

 of the pendant flowers to the 

 human palate (uvula). The com- 

 mon species, portrayed in Fig. 

 LXVI, is U. sessilifolia (the ses- 

 sile-leaved), having the leaves 

 sessile, glaucous beneath. The 

 flower is of a creamy white, hardly 

 1' long, with the styles nearly as 

 long and half united. 



U. perfolidta, the perfoliate- 

 leaved, is also common. The 

 cream-colored flower is more than 6 > Uvu&na perfoiiata. 

 1' long, and the petals are covered and roughened inside 

 with grains, or a mealy dust.* 



U. grandiflora, the great-flowered, has also perfoliate 

 leaves, a flower 1-J-' long, not mealy inside. 



* In this species and the next, the nature of perfoliate leaves is seen. The stem 

 passes through the blade (per, through, folium, leaf) near the base. But here the 

 upper leaves gradually become heart-shaped, and the terminal one is nearly sessile, 

 as in U. sessilifolia. This shows that these leaves become perfoliate by first growing 

 sessile, then enlarging backwards into base lobes, which finally unite by their inner 

 edges and close around the stem, much as the peltate leaves of Tropseolum (p. 91) or 

 the upper (double) leaves of the Honeysuckle. 



