478 MELANTHACEJE. ^COLCHICUM FAMILY.) 



10. HELONIAS, L. HELONIAS. 



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

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

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

 cordatcly 3-lobed, loculicidally 3-valved ; the valves divergently 2-lobed. Seeds 

 man j 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 eXos, a swamp ; the place of growth.) 



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

 Pennsylvania, and Virginia : rare. May. 



11. CHAm^BLIRIUM, Willd. DEVIL'S-BIT. 



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

 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 X"/* 01 '? on the ground, and Xeiptov, lily ; of no obvious appli- 

 cation.) 



1. C. lute II ill. (BLAZING-STAB.) (C. Carolinianum, Willd. Veratrum 

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

 England to Illinois, and southward. June. 



12. TOFIELDIA, Hudson. FALSE ASPHODEL. 



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

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

 obovate, senails. Filaments awl-shaped : anthers short, innate or somewhat 

 introrso ; 2-celled. Styles awl-shaped : stigmas terminal. Pod 3-angular, 3- 

 partiblc or scpticidal ; 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. Leaves 2-ranked, 

 equitaut, linear. (Named after Mr. Tqfield, an English botanist of the last cen- 

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

 tels mostly in threes ; the flowering proceeding from the apex downwards ; 

 seeds tail-pointed at both ends. 



1. T. gllltinosa, Willd. Stem (6'- 16' high) and pedicels very ylutinau* 

 with dark glands; leaves broadly linear, short. Moist grounds, Maine, Michi- 

 gan, Wisconsin, and northward : also southward in the Alleghanies. June. 



