16 
Asparagus. The sheathing bases may be relatively large as in 
Ruscus (Plate LIV, Fig. 21), or smaller as in Semele (Plate LIV, 
Fig. 25); but they are only produced when the leaf has become 
well developed, being represented before then by a narrow band 
of meristematic tissue passing round the axis outside and at the 
base of the succeeding leaf, and distinguishable from a leaf-prim- 
ordium by the absence of the well-marked vascular bundle which 
passes out into the latter (Plate LIV, Fig. 22). With these ex- 
ceptions, the rest of the Asparagee differ but little from the genus 
Asparagus. 
THE GENUS POLYGONATUM. 
I have included a few drawings of Polygonatum lati- 
folium, Desf., to illustrate an interesting modification in the 
development of the seedling, which I think further investiga- 
tion will prove common to the genus. The structure of the 
seed and embryo is similar to that of Asparagus medeolotdes 
Fic. 7.—Polygonatum latifolum, Desf. hte oy — of seedlings 
es the plumular eee ee ung; B, an advanced ae 
cs 2 Tite of cot Siyisden ; Ap., shoot apex 
» thizome buds i = the pat of t the kataphylls ; £ f172; &e. }; easlipil 
03 2nd, &c.); Hyp., hypocotyl; Pr., primary root; r.2, secondary 
foet s-she( ae, 2: &e) ), sheathing base of leaf A1St; ore, Ge.) > Tht. (8), 
internode (Ist). 
BO 
~s 
Ee 
= 
a. 
° 
i=} 
"oO 
aa 
(B, Fig. 1), while the general characteristics of germination are 
very like those found in Ruscus, Danae, and Semele. The interest- 
ing point, however, is that the hypocotyl—which in these plants 
remains almost undeveloped—becomes in this case enlarged into 
a tuberous structure, and thus helps in the formation of the first 
joint of the thick, fleshy, sympodial rhizome typical of the genus 
Polygonatum (Fig. 6). The growth of the plumule resembles 
that of Ruscus, but the epicotylar and few succeeding internodes 
are rather more elongated and fleshy ; while the kataphylls are 
