386 SYSTEMATIC BOTANY 



The Lilies, Tulips, Hyacinth, Asparagus, autumn 

 Crocus (not spring Crocus), Crown-imperial, Solo- 

 mon's Seal, Onion and other bulbous plants familiar 

 in English gardens and on hill stations belong to 

 this family. To it also belong : 



SlMlLAX, which is common on the hills. It is a 

 climbing, often thorny, shrub with tendrils arising 

 at the base of the leaves, and brilliantly coloured 

 berries (see plate and p. 266). 



ASPARAGUS, with wiry stems and linear green cla- 

 dodes. The flat green organs of this plant which 

 look like leaves are in reality modified branches, the 

 leaves being reduced to minute brownish scales in the 

 axils of which these modified branches arise. 



DRACAENA, varieties of which are grown as foliage 

 plants on the plains. Some of the species grow 

 into small trees and increase enormously in thick- 

 ness a very unusual thing in monocotyledons. One 

 famous tree at Teneriffe (Spain) was seventy feet 

 high and forty-five feet in girth and was supposed 

 to be six thousand years old, when blown down 

 forty years ago. 



YUCCA, an Agave like plant, with large white bell- 

 shaped flowers which smell strongly at night. It is 

 a native of Mexico, and is grown in many gardens 

 on the hills. In this too the stem increases in 

 thickness. 



CORDYLINE (fig. 86) is another aborescent genus 

 grown in the Ootacamund and other gardens ; but 

 these are practically the only instances known of stem 

 of monocotyledons growing in thickness (p. 79). 



