Aletris. LILIACEiE. 311 



t. 1418; Bigel. med. hot. 3. p. 94. t. 50, and ^. Bost. p. 131 ; Ell. sk. 1. p. 398; Torr. 

 fl.l. p. 344 ; Beck, hot. p. 364 ; Darlingt.fl. Cest. p. 219. A. alba, Michx. Jl. I. p. 189 ; 

 Pursh, fl. 1. p. 225. 



Rhizoma tuberous, throwing down numerous tough fibres. Leaves smooth, 3-6 inches 

 long, lanceolate and linear-lanceolate, pale yellowish green and of a dry texture. Scape 

 2-3 feet high, slender, terete, smooth, sparingly furnished with small narrow bract-like 

 leaves. Racemes 6-12 inches long (still more elongated in fruit), erect. Pedicels about a 

 line in length, with one or two subulate bracts at the base. Perianth about one-third of a line 

 long, rugose-muricate, and appearing as if covered with a rough powder externally ; the tube 

 white : segments oblong, yellowish at the summit, the alternate ones a little narrower and 

 thickened at the tip. Stamens equal : filaments short, subulate, attached to the middle of the 

 back of the anthers. Ovary roundish, nearly all the lower half adhering to the perianth. 

 Style about as long as the stamens. Capsule nearly one-fourth of an inch long, opening 

 loculicidally about one-third of its length, a portion of the style remaining attached to each 

 lobe. Seeds numerous, minute, reddish, striate or ribbed. 



Dry woods and thickets, sometimes in dry swamps : not uncommon in the southern part of 

 the State and on Long Island, but rare in the interior. Fl. July. Fr. September. The root 

 or rhizoma is very bitter, and is employed as a domestic remedy for intermittents and colic. 

 This genus has generally been referred to Asphodele^, but it differs in several important 

 points ; nor does it agree better with any other division of the great order of Liliaceje. 

 Endlicher places it among H^modorace^e, to which it has some aflinity, but can hardly 

 belong to that tribe. In its tripartite style, and in some other characters, it makes a near 

 approach to Melanthace^. 



Order CXVIIL PONTEDERIACEtE. Kunth. The Pickerel-weed Tribe. 



Flowers perfect. Perianth colored, funnel-form or salver-form ; the limb 6-cleft 

 or 6-parted, more or less irregular, often 2-lipped : aestivation convolute. 

 Stamens 3-6, usually unequal, inserted into the tube of the perianth. Ovary 

 free, or sometimes partly adherent to the tube of the perianth, more or less 

 completely 3-celled, two of the cells (in Pontederia) sometimes smaller and 

 empty. Ovules anatropous in a double series, ascending or inverted ; in 

 Pontederia, the fertile cell with a solitary suspended ovule : sytle single : 

 Btigma 3 - 6-cleft or -toothed. Fruit covered with the persistent tube of the 

 perianth, 3- or 1-celled, loculicidal, many-seeded, sometimes utricular, 1-seeded 

 and indehiscent. Seeds usually ribbed, with a thin testa. Embryo cylindrical, 



