DIOSCOEEACEiE. 169 



NARCISSUS MOSCHATUS. Lmn. 



" Has been found wild in the adjoining parish of ]\Ieriden ; and has 

 been communicated to me by its discoverer, Miss Gresley, of that 

 place." (Rev. W. T. Bree, of AUesley, War\vickshire, in Mag. Nat. 

 Hist. viii. 118.) " But by a second notice in the same Magazine, 

 it would seem that some mistake had occurred, the plant being pos- 

 sibly a whitish variety of N. Pseudo-narcissus. See Mag. Nat. Hist. 

 ix. 494." (Cyb. Brit. vol. ii. p. 446.) 



ORDER LXXXIII.— D lOSCOREACE^. 



Perennial herbs or undershrubs, with large tuberous fleshy or 

 woody rootstocks, and twining stems. Leaves alternate, rarely opposite, 

 stalked, simple, cordate or sagittate at the base, entii'e or rarely pal- 

 mately cleft, palmately veined, with the veuas branched and anasto- 

 mosing. Flowers small, dioecious, in axillary spikes or racemes. 

 Perianth regular, herbaceous or subherbaceous, in the male flowers 

 G-partite ; in the female flowers with the tube adhering to the ovary, 

 and the persistent limb cut into six segments. Stamens 6, inserted 

 on the base of the perianth segments, absent or rudimentary in the 

 female flowers ; anthers attached to the filaments by the back a little 

 above the base, introrse. Ovary rudimentary in the male flowers, 

 in the female combined with the tube of the perianth, 3-celled; 

 ovules solitary, most commonly 2 in each cell, anatropous ; styles 3, 

 often combined at the base; stigma inconspicuous, entire, or rarely 

 2-lobed. Fruit capsular, loculicidally 3-valved, or baccate and inde- 

 hiscent, 3-celled (rarely 1-celled). Seeds as many as the ovules; 

 albumen cartilaginous or hard ; embryo minute 



GENUS /.— T A M U S. Linn. 



Flowers dioecious. JIale flowers with the perianth campanulate, 

 subherbaceous; limb of 6 spreading-recurved segments: stamens 6, 

 inserted on the base of the perianth segments; filaments subulate, 

 anthers subglobose. Female floAvers with the perianth tube not 

 extending beyond the ovary; limb subherbaceous, of six spread- 

 ing-recurved segments shorter than the tube: stamens extremely 

 small, sterile : ovary adhering to the perianth tube, green, fusiform, 



VOL. IX. z 



