HYPOXIS ERECTA. 



STAR-GRASS. 



NATURAL ORDER, AMARVLLIDACE/E. 



Ilvruxis ERECTA, Liiinccus. — Tilous ; scape about four-Ho\vercd, shorter than the linear- 

 lanceolate leaves. Leaves all radical, six to twelve inches by three to five lines, acute. 

 The slender, hairy scapes, several from the same root, arise six to eight inches, divided 

 at top into a sort of umbel with three to five peduncles, having each a minute, subulate 

 spathe at the base. Perianth hairy and greenish without, yellow within ; segments oval, 

 rather obtuse. (Wood's Class- Book of Botany. See also Gray's Manual of the Botany 

 of the Northern United States, and Chapman's Flora of the Southern United States.) 



I IE beautiful little plant to which the present chapter is 

 devoted is one of the oldest known of our native flowers, 

 as it was included in the catalogue of the flora of Virginia, which 

 the Rev. John Bannister sent to Ray, the well-known English 

 botanist, towards the end of the seventeenth century. It was 

 then thought to be an Ornithogalum, a genus belonging to the 

 neighboring order of Lillacccr, and was so styled by Clayton 

 when he sent his specimens to Gronovius in the earlier part of 

 the succeeding century. We first meet with it, separated from 

 Ornithogahim, and as Hypoxis, in Schreber's edition of the 

 " Genera Plantarum " of Linnaeus. The shape of the seed-vessel 

 or capsule, which is narrowed at the base, seems to have been 

 chiefly relied on as characteristic in giving the plant its new 

 name, — Hypoxis being from the Greek I/ypo, under, and oxys, 

 sharp, and signifying, therefore, " sharp or tapering underneath." 

 This later name is certainly an improvement over the older one, 

 as we know at least how it is derived, which is more than can 

 be said of Ornithogalum. In the Greek form of Oruidiogalou 

 this name occurs chiefly in the writings of Dioscorides, a Greek 



