138 ENGLISH BOTANY. 



together ; and they may be easily found at any time in the leaves of the very eoinmon 

 and hardy 7/-i'.s- Germiiidca, almost always at band in cottage and suburban gardens. 

 These crystals are very distinct prisms, the faces and angles ■well marked, and each 

 crystal usually larger than one of the true raphides. The crystal prisms are not only 

 beautiful in themselves, but such capital objects for experiments with polarised light 

 as to be well fitted to afford, in this way, many occasional and pleasant half-hours 

 with the microscope. Certain common LOiacese also contain the crystal prisms 

 plentifully. They occur often in the form of crosses in the bulb-scales of some onions, 

 as the eschalot, but are smaller than in most Iridace®. These ciystals are very 

 easily examined in any of the plants mentioned. 



GENUS L—S ISYRINCHIUM. Linn. 



Perianth regular, petaloid; tube very short, either not extending 

 beyond the ovary, or, if extending beyond it, straight ; limb 6-partite, 

 the segments all nearly similar, spreading or ascending. Stamens 3, 

 inserted on the tube of the perianth ; filaments united into a tube, or 

 their bases cohering in a ring ; anthers affixed by the base. Ovary 

 adliering to the tube of the perianth, subglobular- trigonous, green; 

 style short; stigmas 3, involute-filiform, entire. Capsule parchment- 

 like, subglobular, bluntly trigonous, loculicidally 3-valved. Seeds 

 numerous, subglobose or angulated, with a hard testa. 



Herbs with roots consisting of tufts of wiry fibres, but with no con- 

 spicuous rootstock. Stems often 2-edged. Leaves commonly ensi- 

 form and equitant, rarely setaceous. Flowers rather small, brightly 

 coloured, enclosed in bivalve subherbaceous spathes. 



^KTvpiyxtov is a name given by Theophrastus to some bulbous plant. 



SPECIES I._SISYRINCHIUM BERMUDIANA. Linn. 

 Plate MCCCCXCI. 

 S. anceps, Bab. Man. Brit. Bot. ed. vi. p. 336. 



Stem winged, leafless, or of one or two leaves. Leaves narrow, 

 grasslike. Perianth segments oblong-obovate, emarginate and mu- 

 cronate, blue within, bluish-white on the exterior. 



In boggy places. Very rare. In several places about Woodford, 

 Galway, but possibly not native. In the " Cybele Hibernica," p. 291, the 

 following stations are given : " In a low meadow on the bank of a 

 stream called the Woodford River, four miles from Woodford, and one 

 mile from Lough Derg, near the police barrack at Rossmore. In a 

 piece of mountain pasture in the opening of a wood on a hill two 

 miles north-east of Woodford, about 300 feet above the sea; also 



