AMA 



AMA 



others are past : it is joined by La Marck 

 with a tri-colour; a native of Guiana 

 and the East-Indies, and cultivated in 

 1731 by Miller. The obscure purple and 

 bright crimson of the leaves are so blend- 

 ed as to set off each other, and, in the 

 vigorous state of the plants, make a fine 

 appearance. A tri-color, three-colour- 

 ed A. with glomerules sessile, roundish ; 

 stem clasping 1 , and leaves lanceolate-ovate, 

 coloured. This has been long cultivated, 

 being in the garden of Gerard in 1596, 

 for the beauty of its variegated leaves, in 

 which the colours are elegantly mixed ; 

 these, when the plants are vigorous, are 

 large and closely set from the bottom to 

 the top of the stalks, and the branches 

 form a kind of pyramid, and therefore 

 there is not a more handsome plant when 

 in full lustre : a native of Guiana, Persia, 

 Ceylon, China, Japan, the Society Isles, 

 &c. A. lividus, livid A. These are the 

 most worthy of a place in the pleasure- 

 garden ; but they are tender, and require 

 attention. They are usually disposed in 

 pots, with cocks-combs and other showy 

 plants, for adorning court-yards,, and the 

 environs of the house. The seeds of these 

 should be sown in a moderate hot-bed, 

 about the end of March ; and when the 

 plants come up, they should have much 

 air in mild weather. When they are fit 

 for transplanting, they should be removed 

 to another moderate hot -bed, and placed 

 at six inches distance, watering and sha- 

 ding them till they have taken new root; 

 afterwards they should have free air, and 

 frequent but gentle waterings. In the be- 

 ginning of June they should be taken up, 

 with large balls of earth to their roots, 

 and planted either in pots or the borders 

 of the pleasure-garden, shaded till they 

 have taken root, and afterwards frequent- 

 ly watered in dry weather. The tree 

 amaranth must be planted in a rich light 

 soil, and if it be allowed room, and well 

 watered in dry weather, it will grow to a 

 large size, and make a fine appearance. 

 The other sorts are sufficiently hardy to 

 bear the open air, and may be sown on a 

 bedof light earth in the spring, and when 

 the plants are fit to remove, transplanted 

 into any part of the garden, where they 

 will thrive and produce plenty of seeds. 



AMARILLIS, in botany, a genus of 

 the Hexandria Monogynia class and or- 

 der, of the natural order of Liliae or Lilia- 

 ceae ; its characters are, that the calyx is 

 a spathe, oblong, obtuse, compressed, 

 emarginate, gaping on the flat side, and 

 withering; the corolla has six petals, 

 lanceolate, the nectary has six very short 



scales without the base of the filaments ; 

 the stamina have six awl-shaped filaments, 

 with oblong, incumbent, rising anthers ; 

 the pistillum has a roundish, furrowed, 

 inferior germ, the style filiform, almost of 

 the length and in the situation of the sta- 

 mens, the stigma trifid and slender ; the 

 pericarpium is a subovate, three-celled., 

 three-valved capsule ; and the seeds are 

 several. The inflection of the petals, 

 stamens, and pistil, is very various in the 

 different species of this genus ; and the 

 corolla in most of the species is rather 

 hexapetaloid than six-petalled. Gmelin 

 reckons 27 species. A. lutea, yellow A. 

 or autumnal narcissus, with an undivided 

 obtuse spathe, sessile; flower bell sha- 

 ped ; corolla erect, shortly tubular at the 

 base, and erect stamens, alternately 

 shorter ; the flowers seldom rise above 

 three or four inches high ; the green 

 leaves come up at the same time, and 

 when the flowers are past, the leaves in- 

 crease through the winter. This species 

 recedes a little from the genus It is a 

 native of the South of France, Spain, Italy, 

 and Thrace : was cultivated by Gerard, 

 in 1596, and flowers in September. A. 

 formosissima, jacobea lily, so called, 

 because some imagined that they disco- 

 vered in it a likeness to the badge of the 

 order of the knights of the order of St. 

 James, in Spain, the lilio-narcissus and 

 narcissus of others, with a spathe undi- 

 vided, flower pedicelled, corolla two-lip- 

 ped, nodding, deeply six-parted stamens, 

 and pistil bent down. The flowers are 

 produced from the sides of the bulbs, are 

 large, of a deep red, and make a beauti- 

 ful appearance : it is a native of America, 

 first known in Europe in 1593, some roots 

 of it having been found on board a ship 

 which had returned from South America, 

 by Simon de Jovar, a physician at Seville, 

 who sent a description of the flowers to 

 Clusius, who published a drawing of it in 

 1601, called, by Parkinson, who figured it 

 in 1629, the Indian daffodil, with a red 

 flower : cultivated in the Oxford Garden 

 in 1658. A. reginae, Mexican lily, with 

 spathe, having about two flowers, pedicels 

 divaricating, corollas bell-shaped, shortly 

 tubular, nodding, throat of the tube hir- 

 sute and leaves lanceolate, patulous ; the 

 bulb is green, corolla scarlet, and at the 

 bottom whitish green, the style red, the 

 flowers large, of a bright copper colour, 

 inclined to red : it flowered in Fairchild's 

 garden, at Hoxton, in 1728 ; and Dr. 

 Douglas wrote a folio pamphlet upon it, 

 giving it the title of lilium reginae, because 

 it was in full beauty on the first of March, 



