74 NATURE STUDIES. 



do but little active work on their own account. After 

 the hyacinth has flowered, the bulb is reduced to an 

 empty and flaccid mass of watery brown scales. 



Among all the lily kind, such devices for storing up 

 useful material, either in bulbs or in the very similar 

 organs known as corms, are extremely common. As 

 a consequence, many of them produce unusually large 

 and showy flowers. Even among our native English 

 lilies we can boast of such beautiful blossoms as the 

 fritillary, the wild hyacinth, the meadow-saffron, and 

 the two pretty squills ; while in our gardens the tiger 

 lilies, tulips, tuberoses, and many others belong to 

 the same handsome bulbous group. Closely-allied, 

 families give us the bulb-bearing narcissus, daffodil,, 

 snowdrop, amaryllis, and Guernsey lily ; the crocus, 

 gladiolus, iris, and corn-flag; while the neighbouring' 

 tribe of orchids, most of which have tubers, probably 

 produce more ornamental flowers than any other 

 family of plants in the whole world. Among a widely- 

 different group we get other herbs which lay by rich 

 stores of starch, or similar nutritious substances, in 

 thickened underground branches, known as tubers ; 

 such, for example, are the potato and the Jerusalem 

 artichoke. Sometimes the root itself is the store- 

 house for the accumulated food-stuffs, as in the dahliti, 

 the carrot, the radish, and the turnip. In all these 

 cases, the plant obviously derives benefit from the 

 habit which it has acquired of hiding away its reserve 

 fund beneath the ground, where it is much less likely 

 to be discovered and eaten by its animal foes. For 



