122 THE STOEY OF THE PLANTS. 



like our own wild hyacinth, show a slight ten- 

 dency on the part of the petals and sepals to 

 unite into a bell-shaped tube ; still, even here 

 the pieces are really distinct and separate. But 

 in the true garden hyacinth the pieces unite into 

 a tubular perianth, like the tubular corolla of 

 the common harebell, except that in the harebell 

 the tube is formed by the union of the five 

 petals, while in the hyacinth it is formed by the 

 similar union of three petals and three sepals. 

 A still higher form of the same union is shown 

 us by the lily-of-the-valley, in which the six 

 perianth-pieces join throughout to form a very 

 beautiful heather - like cup or goblet. Other 

 familiar members of this great lily group, which 

 you ought to examine at leisure for yourself, in 

 order to see how they are built up, are aspa- 

 ragus, Solomon's seal, fritillary, tulip, star-of- 

 Bethlehem, squill, garlic, onion, tuberose, and 

 asphodel. The cultivated lilies of one sort or 

 another to be found in our gardens may be 

 numbered by hundreds. 



A family of threefold flowers almost as beauti- 

 ful as the lily group, and seldom distinguished 

 from them save by botanists, is that which 

 bears the pretty Greek name of amaryllids. The 

 amaryllids are lilies which differ from the rest 

 of their kind, in the fact that the perianth, still 

 composed of six pieces, has grown up and around 

 the ovary so as to seem to spring from above it, 

 not below it. Such flowers are said to have 

 " inferior ovaries." In other respects the 

 amaryllids closely resemble the lilies, having 

 six coloured perianth-pieces, six stamens, and 



