478 MELANTHACEJS. (COLCHICUM FAMILY.) 



1O. IIEL.6WIAS, L. HELONIAS. 



Flowers perfect. Perianth of 6 spatulate-oblong (purplish turning greenish) 

 sepals, persistent, shorter than the thread-like filaments. Anthers 2-cellxl, 

 roundish-oval, blue. Styles revolute, stigmatic down the inner side. Pod ob- 

 cordately .S-lobed, lorulicidally 3-valved ; the valves divergently 2-Iobed. Seeds 

 many in each cell, linear, with a tapering appendage at both ends. A smooth 

 perennial, with many oblanceolate or oblong-spatulate flat leaves, from a tuber 

 ous rootstock, producing in early spring a hollow naked scape (l-2 high) 

 sheathed with broad bracts at the base, and terminated by a simple and short 

 dense raceme. Bracts obsolete : pedicels shorter than the flowers. (Name 

 probably from eXor, a swamp ; the place of growth.) 



1. H. bllllata, L. (H. latifolia, Michx.) Wet places, New Jersey, 

 Pennsylvania, and Virginia : rare. May. 



11. CHAM^ELIRIUM, Willd. PEVIL'S-BIT. 



Flowers dioecious. Perianth of 6 spatulate-linear (white) spreading sepaJs, 

 withering-persistent. Filaments and (yellow) anthers as in Helonias : fertile 

 flowers with rudimentary stamens. Styles linear-club-shaped, stigmatic along 

 the inner side. Pod ovoid-oblong, not lobed, of a thin texture, loculicidally 3- 

 valved from the apex, many-seeded. Seeds linear-oblong, conspicuously winged 

 at each end. A smooth herb, with a wand-like stem from a (bitter) thick and 

 abrupt tuberous rootstock, terminated by a long and wand-like spiked raceme 

 (4' -9' long) of small bractless flowers; the fertile plant more leafy than the 

 staminate. Leaves flat, lanceolate, the lowest spatulate, tapering into a petiole. 

 (Name composed of ^a/zai, on the ground, and \eipiov, lily ; of no obvious appli- 

 cation.) 



1. C. liltcilili. (BLAZING-STAR.) (C. Caroliniannm, Willd. Vcratrum 

 luteum, L. Helonias lutea, Ait. H. dioica, Pursh.) Low grounds, W. New 

 England to Illinois, and southward. June. 



12. TOFIEL.IHA, Hudson. FALSE ASPHODEL. 



Flowers perfect, usually with a little 3-bracted involucre underneath. Peri- 

 anth more or less spreading ; the sepals (white or greenish) concave, oblong or 

 obovatc, sessile. Filaments awl-shaped: anthers short, innate or somewhat 

 introrse, 2-celled. Styles awl-shaped : stigmas terminal. Pod '3-angnlar, 3- 

 partible or septicidal ; the cells many-seeded. Seeds oblong. Slender peren- 

 nials, mostly tufted, with fibrous roots, and simple scape-like stems leafy only 

 at the base, bearing small flowers in a close raceme or spike. Leave* 2-ranked, 

 equitant, linear. (Named after Mr, Tofield, an English botanist of the last cen- 

 tury.) The two following compose the subgenus TR1ANTHA, Nutt. : pedi- 

 cels mostly in threes; the flowering proceeding from the apex downwards, 

 seeds tail-pointed at both ends. 



1. T. gllltitlOSa, Willd. Stem (6'-16' high) and pedieels \ ery r/htlinous 

 with dark (jl'tixh : leaves broadly linear, short. Moist grounds, Maine. Michi- 

 gan, Wisconsin, and northward: also southward in the, Alle^lianie;-. ,\\\IM, 



