276 SUB-ALPINE PLANTS 



LILIACEyE 



Perennial herbs with creeping, bulbous or clustered rootstock, 

 and either radical leaves and peduncles, or annual or biennial, leafy 

 flowering-stems. Flowers usually hermaphrodite. Perianth usually 

 6-lobed. Stamens 6, hypogynous, or attached to the perianth- 

 lobes. Styles i or 3, rarely o. Fruit usually a 3-celled capsule or 

 berry. 



A large family of nearly 2000 species, widely spread over many 

 regions of the globe. 



STREPTOPUS Rich. 

 Streptopm amplexifolius DC. 



Rootstock oblique, knotted with abundant fibres. Stem erect, 

 simple or branched, zigzag, glabrous like the whole plant. Leaves 

 cordate-lanceolate, entire, acuminate, amplexicaul, sea-green on 

 under side. Flower-stalks usually solitary, i-flowered, bent down- 

 wards nearly at a right angle. Flowers whitish. Berries globular 

 or ellipsoidal, watery, scarlet. 



Alpine and sub-alpine woods up to 6500 feet ; local. June, July. 



Distribution. Carpathians, Eastern, Central, and Western Alps ; 

 Jura, Vosges, Cevennes, Pyrenees, Corsica ; Central Europe, Asia, 

 North America. 



CONVALLARIA L. 



Convallaria majalis L. Lily of the valley. 



Stem leafless except for a pair of large, elliptical, radical leaves. 

 Flowers white, nearly orbicular, in a unilateral raceme, sweet- 

 scented. Fruit a red berry. 



Woods, sometimes in quantities, ascending occasionally to Alpine 

 thickets at over 5000 feet. May, June. 



Distribution, Europe, except Mediterranean, Western and 

 Northern Asia. British. 



POLYGONATUM Toum. Solomon's Seal. 



Flowers axillary and solitary or in racemes, pendulous, usually 

 greenish white. Sepals and petals united below. Stem leafy, 

 springing from a thick rhizome. Leaves broad (except in one or 

 two species), usually alternate. Fruit a berry. 



Polygonatum multiftorum All. 



Stem 2-3 feet high. Peduncles axillary, bearing 2-5 greenish 

 white and rather small flowers. Filaments of the stamens hairy. 

 Leaves oval or oblong. Berry blue-black. 



Woods ; frequent. May, June. 



Distribution. Europe, except Mediterranean, Western and 

 Northern Asia, Canada, British. 



