GARDEN BOTANY. 



nodding white flower, the 3 proper petals shorter than the sepals, obcordate 

 and tipped with green : sometimes double-flowered. 



6. Leucoium vernum, SPRING SNOWFLAKE. Like the nowdrop on 

 a larger scale, but the six pieces of the perianth all alike, ovate and entire, white, 

 with a green spot outside near the apex ; anthers blunt. 



L. 8Bsti s VUm, SUMMER SNOWFLAKE, is commoner than the last in gar- 

 dens, taller (the 2-edged scape and leaves 1 or 2 high) ; flowers several and 

 smaller, in June. 



7. Amaryllis, AMARYLLIS. Man. p. 455. Plants with strap-shaped leaves 

 and a simple scape from a coated buib ; flowers one or more, generally red or 

 pink, large and showy, lily-like, regular or considerably irregular. Many hy- 

 brids are cultivated. 



A. Belladonna. Flowers several in an umbel, 4' long, between funnel- 

 form and bell-shaped, with hardly any tube, rose-colored, almost regular ; sta- 

 mens and style declined ; leaves appearing after the flowering season. 



A. Hegin93, with 2 -4 equally large deep-red flowers ; leaves two-ranked. 



A. formosissima, JACOBJEA LILY, or ST. JAMES'S CROSS. Scape 

 bearing one large rich crimson-red flower, which is declined, with hardly any 

 tube, and as it were 2-lipped, three of its divisions upwardly recurved-spread- 

 ing, the other 3 turned down, their lower portion involute around the base 

 of the deflexed stamens and style. 



8. Agave. Man. p. 456. To this belongs that very striking plant of con- 

 servatories, the Mexican 



A. Americana, CENTURY-PLANT, AMERICAN ALOE, with very thick 

 and large spiny-pointed and spinulose-margined leaves in a close cluster 

 at the root : it propagates freely by offsets from the root : when it blossoms 

 (which it does in its native tropics in 7 or 8 years, but in the colder northern 

 countries after so many years that it has obtained the name of Century-Plant), 

 it rapidly sends up a scape as thick as a man's leg, 15 to 30 feet high, bearing 

 an immense panicle of yellowish-green flowers ; and the plant dies as the pods 

 ripen their seeds. A variety has the leaves striped with yellowish or white. 



ORDER IRIDACE^J. IRIS FAMILY. 



Manual, p. 459. Furnishes several common ornamental plants of the gar- 

 dens. 



Filaments monadelphous in a long and slender tube sheathing the 

 Btyle : stigmas 3 each 2-parted, slender : perianth widely spread- 

 ing, spotted, the 3 outer divisions very large, the 3 inner divis- 

 ions small. L TIGRIDIA. 



Filaments distinct and separate : stigmas more or less dilated. 



Perianth irregular, more or less bilabiate : flowers in a 1-sided spike. 2. GLADIOLU3. 

 Perianth with the divisions unlike, the 3 outer (or sepals) recurved, 

 the 3 inner alternate with them (or petals) erect : stigmas petal- 

 like, arching over the stamens 3. IRIS. 



Perianth regular and the 6 divisions alike or nearly so, 

 Widely spreading, spotted, without any tube above the ovary : 



stem leafy, branching above 4. PARDANTHUS 



Less spreading, broad, with a slender tube between them and the 

 ovary, which is underground ; no proper stem : leaves all 

 radical, not equitant 6. CROCUS. 



