IRIDACE^. (lUlS FAMILY.) 515 



3. ALETRIS, L. Colic-koot. Star-grass. 



Perianth cylindrical, not woolly, but wrinklccf and roughened outside by 

 thickly-set points, which look like scurfy mealiness, the tube cohering below 

 with the base only of the ovary, 6-clet't at the summit. Stamens C, inserted at 

 the base of the lobes: filaments and anthers short, included. Style awl-shaped, 

 3-eleft at the apex : stigmas minutely 2-lobed. Pod ovate, enclosed in the 

 roughened perianth ; the dehiscence, seeds, &c. nearly as in Lophiola. — Peren- 

 nial and smooth stemless herbs, very bitter, with fibrous roots, and a spreading 

 cluster of thin and flat lanceolate leaves ; the small flowers in a wand-like spiked 

 raceme, terminating a naked slender scape (2°-3° high). Bracts awl-shaped, 

 minute. ('AXerpiy, a female slave who grinds corn ; the name applied to these 

 plants in allusion to the apparent mealiness dusted over the blossoms.) 



1. A. farinosa, L. Flowers oblong-tubular, white; lobes lanceolate-ob- 

 long. — Grassy or sandy woods : not rare. July, Aug. 



2 A. aiirea, Walt. Plowersbell-shaped, yellow (fewer and shorter); lobes 

 short-ovate. — Barrens, New Jersey to Virginia, and southward. July. 



Order 117. BROMEHACEiE. (Pine- Apple Family.) 



Herbs (or scarcely/ woodi/ plants, nearly all tropical), the cjreater part epi- 

 phytes, loith persistent dry or fleshy and channelled crowded leaves, sheath- 

 ing at the base, usually covered with scurf: G-androus ; the 6-cleft perianth 

 adherent to the ovary in the Pine-apple, &c , or free from it in 



1. TILLANDSIA, L. Long Moss. 



Perianth plainly double, 6-parted ; the 3 outer divisions (sepals) membrana- 

 ceous; the 3 inner (petals) colored; all convolute below into a tube, spreading 

 above, lanceolate. Stamens 6, hypogynous ! or the alternate ones cohering with 

 the base of the petals : anthers introrse. Ovary free : style thread-shaped : stig- 

 mas 3. Pod cartilaginous, 3-celled, loculicidally 3-valved ; the valves splitting 

 into an inner and an outer layer. Seeds .several or many in each cell, anatro- 

 pous, club-shaped, pointed, raised on a long hairy-tufted stalk, like a coma. 

 Embryo small, at the base of copious albumen. — Scurfy-leaved epiphytes. 

 (Named for Prof. Tillands of Abo.) 



1. T. usneoides, L. (Common Long Moss or Black Moss.) Stems 

 thread-shaped, branching, pendulous; leaves thread-shaped; peduncle short, I- 

 flowered. — Dismal Swamp, Virginia, and southward; growing on the branches 

 of trees, forming long hanging tufts. A characteristic plant of the Southern 

 States, and barely coming within the limits of this work. 



Order 118. IRIDACE^. (Iris Family.) 



Herbs, with equitant 2-ranled leaves, and refjular or irregular perfect 

 flowers; the divisions of the G-clefl petal-like perianth convolute in the bud 

 in 2 sets, the tube coherent with the 3-cetled ovary, and 3 distinct or mona- 

 delphous stmnens, alternate with the inner divisions of the perianth and 



