MELANTHACEJE. (COLCHICUM FAMILY.) 477 



flowers; sepals dingy -green, oblanceolate or spatulate (2" -3" long, those of 

 the sterile flowers on claws, widely spreading. (Melanthium monoicum, Walt. 

 Leimanthium monoicum, Gray.) Kich woods, mountains of Virginia and 

 southward. July. 



3. V. Woodii, Bobbins. Leaves lanceolate or oblong-lanceolate ; pedi- 

 cels (l"-3" long) shorter than the flowers, the oblanceolate spreading sepals (3"- 

 4%" long) dingy green turning brownish purple within : otherwise much as in the 

 last, of which it may prove to be a variety ; but the flowers are mostly double 

 the size, the panicle stouter, &c. (Plant 3 -6 high.) Woods and hilly bar- 

 rens, Green Co., Indiana, Wood. Augusta, Illinois, Mead. July. 



8. AMIANTHIUM, Gray. FLY-POISON. 



Flowers perfect. Perianth widely spreading ; the distinct and free petal-like 

 (white) sepals oval or obovate, sessile, not gland-bearing. Filaments capillary, 

 equalling or exceeding the perianth. Anthers (as in all the foregoing) kidney- 

 shaped or heart-shaped, becoming 1 -celled, and shield-shaped after opening. 

 Styles thread-like. Pods, &c. nearly as in Melanthium. Seeds wingless, ob- 

 long or linear, with a loose coat, 1 - 4 in each cell. Glabrous plants, with sim- 

 ple stems from a bulbous base or coated bulb, scape-like, few-leaved, terminated 

 by a simple dense raceme of handsome flowers, turning greenish with age. 

 Leaves linear, keeled, grass-like. (From dp'ai/ros, unspotted, and avQos, flower; 

 a name made with more regard to euphony than to correctness of construction, 

 alluding to the glandless perianth.) 



1. A. inusrn (6\i< mil, Gray. (Fi/r-PoisON.) Leaves broadly linear, 

 elongated, obtuse (' to 1' wide), as long as the scape; raceme simple, oblong 01 

 cylindrical ; pod abruptly 3-horned ; seeds oblong, with a fleshy red coat. (He- 

 lonias erythrosperma, Michx.) Open woods, New Jersey and Pennsylvania 

 to Kentucky and southward. June, July. 



9. XEROPHYL.JLIIIH, Michx. XBROPHYLLUM. 



Flowers perfect. Perianth widely spreading ; sepals petal-like (white), oval, 

 distinct, sessile, not glandular, at length withering, about the length of the awl- 

 shaped filaments. Anthers 2-celled, short. Styles thread-like, stigmatic down 

 the inner side. Pod globular-3-lobed, obtuse (small), loculicidal ; the valves 

 bearing the partitions. Seeds 2 in each cell, collateral, 3-angled, not margined. 

 Herb with the aspect of an Asphodel ; the stem simple, l-4 high, from a 

 bulbous base, bearing a simple compact raceme of showy white flowers, thickly 

 beset with needle-shaped leaves, the upper ones reduced to bristle-like bracts ; 

 those from the root very many in a dense tuft, reclined, 1 or more long, 1' 

 wide below, rough on the margin, remarkably dry and rigid (whence the name, 

 from rjpos, arid, and <vXAov, leaf). 



1. X. asphodeloidcs, Nutt. (X. tenax, Nutt. X setifolium, Michx. 

 Helonias, L.) Pine barrens, New Jersey, Virginia? and southward. (Also in 

 Oregon and California.) June. 



