287 



N. Ord. MELANTHACEJE. 

 Tribe Veratrea*. 



Genus Schcenocaulon,* A. Gray. Species 3, all found in 

 southern North America. 



287. Schoenocaulon officinale, A. Gray in Benth. Plant. Hart- 



weg., p. 29 (1839). 



Sabadilla. Cevadilla. 



Syn Melanthium Sabadilla, Thunb. Veratruin officinale, Schlecht. 

 Helonias omcinalis, Don. Sabadilla ofncinarum, Brandt. Asagrseaf 

 officinalis, Lindl. 



Figures. Nees, Supp.; Hayne, xiii, t. 27; Berg & Sch., t. 9 e; Bot. 

 Reg., xxv (1839), t. 33. 



Description. A bulbous herb, the small ovoid bulb covered 

 with numerous thin, black scales, and the scape reaching 5 feet or 

 more in height. Leaves all from the bulb, linear, grass-like, 1J 4? 

 feet long, smooth, entire, gradually tapering, keeled with a strong 

 midrib. Scape slender, cylindrical, or somewhat angular, smooth, 

 quite simple. Inflorescence a moderately dense, very narrow, spike- 

 like raceme, 9 18 inches long, pedicels short, with small bracts at 

 the base, flowers very numerous, scarcely f inch wide, those in 

 the lower part of the inflorescence hermaphrodite, those in the 

 upper part staminate and sterile. Perianth-leaves 6, spreading in 

 two whorls, the outer 3 slightly larger, strap- shaped, blunt, thick, 

 greenish-yellow, hollowed and nectariferous at the base. Stamens 6, 

 hypogynous, opposite the leaves of the perianth and longer than 

 them, very slightly adherent to their base, filaments flat, anthers 

 large, reniform, yellow, the cells confluent, dehiscing along the 

 top. Carpels 3, superior, erect, shorter than the stamens, in 

 contact by their ventral sutures, each with several (6 8) ascending 

 ovules, styles slender, slightly combined at the base, curved 



* Name from <r\oivoe, a rush, and KavXot,, a stem, from the habit of its scape, 

 f Asagraea was given in commemoration of Prof. Asa Gray, of Harvard 

 University, the most distinguished of living American botanists. 



