Sisyrinckium.] LXXXII. IRIDE^. 461 



III. SISYRINCHIUM. SISYKINCHIUM. 



Rootstock tufted or fibrous. Leaves grass-like or lanceolate, entirely 

 or most radical. Flowers of a delicate blue. Perianth-segments 6, 

 all nearly equal, similar and spreading, the tube short and broad. 

 Stamens united in a tube. Stigmas 3, filiform, undivided, rolled 

 inwards. 



A considerable genus, almost exclusively American. 



1. S. angustifolium, Mill (fig. 1020). Blue-eytd Grass. Leaves 

 narrow, grass-like, sheathing at the base, shorter than the stem. Stem 

 6 inches to 1 foot high, 2-edged, or with 2 narrow acute wings, rather 

 broader under the erect bracts. Flowers 1 to 4 together in a terminal 

 cluster, the filiform pedicels almost concealed within 2 sheathing lan- 

 ceolate bracts, of which the outer one often ends in a leafy tip exceed- 

 ing the flowers, but occasionally both are nearly equal. Fruit a small 

 globular capsule. S. bermudiana of former editions." 



In moist meadows, woods and grassy places, very common through- 

 out North America. In Britain near Kerry and Galway, in Ireland, 

 where there seems no ground to suppose that it can have been intro- 

 duced by human agency. Fl. summer. 



IV. ROMULEA. ROMULEA. 



Small bulbous plants, with the foliage and flowers of Crocus, except 

 that the perianth- tube is very short, and the short stigmas are deeply 

 2-cleft. 



A genus of very few species, chiefly from the Mediterranean region. 



1. B. Columnae, Seb. and Maur. (fig. 1021). Common A Bulb 

 small, with shining brown coats. Leaves very narrow and grass -like, 

 spreading, 3 or 4 inches long, sheathing at the base. Flower-stalk not 

 half so long, with a single erect terminal flower, almost sessile in a 

 sheathing bract, and of a pale purplish-blue, with a yellow centre. 

 Perianth near inch long, the segments half-spreading and rather 

 pointed. Trickonema Bulbocodium of former editions. 



In heaths and sandy places, chiefly near the sea, nearly all round the 

 Mediterranean, and up the western coasts of Europe, to the Channel 

 Islands and Dawlish in Devon, where it abounds at the Warren. Fl. 

 spring. 



V. CROCUS. CROCUS. 



Rootstock bulbous, the outer coating fibrous, and more or less netted, 

 or rarely membranous. Leaves radical, narrow-linear. Flowers almost 

 sessile among the leaves, with a very long tube, and a campanulate limb 

 of 6 nearly equal segments. Stigmas dilated and coloured at the top, 

 and often cut or fringed, but not petal-like. Capsule buried among 

 the leaves. 



A south European and west Asiatic genus, a few species extending 

 iuto central Europe, and several, long since cultivated for ornament, 

 and one for saffron collected from the stigmas, have established them- 

 selves in a few localities still farther north. 



