502 MR. .ل‎ MIERS ON THE CONANTHERE.E. 
really belongs to the latter group, and has no claims on which a distinct family can he 
founded. 
The group of the Conantheree, as proposed by D. Don in 1832, included Zephyra, 
Pasithea, Conanthera, and Cummingia, and was then distinguished from the Asphodelee 
in Liliacee by a semiinferior ovary and inarticulated pedicels. Endlicher adopted this 
group, considering it most allied to Anthericee, and he added Echeandia to it. The 
Zephyra of Don, a genus little known, singularly accords with Tecophilea: it has a 
bulbous root, the same kind of paniculated stem, with vaginant and nearly radical leaves, 
a similar perianth of six segments, three of them alternately furnished at the tip with 
the same spur-like process: it has six stamens, four of which are provided with calcarated 
fertile anthers having the same mode of dehiscence as in Tecophilea, the other two being 
purple, sterile, and formed as in that genus. The anthers of Conanthera and Cummingia 
are all fertile, and are remarkable for being shaped precisely like the sterile anthers of 
‘Tecophilea. The ovary, style, and stigma are nearly alike in the four genera; in all the 
capsule is trilocular, loculicidally 3-valved at the apex, with valves septiferous in the 
middle. In Zephyra it is nearly superior; in Conanthera and Cummingia it is from nearly 
half to two-thirds superior; in Tecophilea it is only one-third superior, the cicatrix of 
the fallen perianth marking these limits: in all these cases the difference is only one of 
degree, and therefore quite insufficient to maintain, upon that ground alone, a distinct 
order between Zridacec and Liliacee ; for in Zephyra it scarcely extends beyond the usual 
limit of the Anthericee, and it is only in Tecophilea that its utmost amount of divergence 
is reached. 
The Conantheree, reduced to these conditions, are further distinguished by having a 
solid semiglobular tuberose root, with nearly radical leaves and a simple stem, more or 
less branched, thus forming a lax paniele of pedicellated flowers, the pedicels bracteated 
at their origin, not being articulated with the flower: the segments of the perianth 
united at base into a tube, the three inner ones usually ciliated on their basal margins, 
and the three outer ones generally mucronated or spurred at their summit: the filaments 
opposite the segments are extremely short, dilated at the base, and there united in a 
membranous ring which is partly adnate to the base of the tube: the anthers are 2-celled 
e sometimes spuriously 4-celled by the inflection of corresponding grooves, the cells 
being sometimes combined together at the base, projecting in the form of a spur, and 
they are basifixed upon the filament behind the spur or in a sinus behind the lobes when 
the spur is wanting : they always open more or less 2-valvately in the apex or in a pori- 
form manner. The ovary is always more or less superior. 
Under these limits, Pasithea must be excluded from the Conantherec, on account of 
its fingered or branching root, its long foliiferous stem, its elongated slender filaments, 
and oscillatory anthers with longitudinal dehiscence, its perianth twisted in marcescence 
and persistent, its completely superior capsule, and its large trigonous polished seeds: 1n 
these عرو د‎ it is closely allied to Trichopetalum, and evidently belongs to the 106: 
For similar reasons, judging from the description given of it, Echeandia will also be 
excluded, but Cyanella, hitherto placed in Anthericee, from its obvious characters should 
rank among the Conantherea. "This group, without inconsistency, might remain à dis- 
