220 ENGLISH BOTANY. 



is considered a certain cure. An old couplet records the estimation in wliicli it was 

 beld by our forefathers : — 



" Eat locks in Lide, and Ramsons in May, 

 And all the year after physicians may play." 



Tribe III.— ANTHERICEiE. 



Perianth leaves free or coherent at the base. Seeds globular or 

 triquetrous, with the testa commonly black. 



Rootstock not bulbous, producing fasciculated fibres. Leaves all 

 radical, or on a leafy stem, commonly linear. 



GENUS XVI.—S I M E T H I S. Kunfh. 



Flowers perfect, jointed to the pedicel below the base. Pei'iauth 

 coloured, -widely funnelshaped or funnclshaped-rotate ; perianth leaves 

 6, free, except at the very base, deciduous, spreading, 5- to 7-nerved. 

 Stamens 6, free from the base of the perianth leaves ; filaments woolly 

 in the lower half. Style filiform ; stigma entire. Capsule subglobose, 

 3-lobed, loculicidally 3-valved, 3-celled. Seeds 2 in each cell of the 

 ovary, one above the other, or (by abortion) only 1 ; testa black, 

 furnished with an arillus. 



An herb with a nonbulbous rootstock producing a tuft of fasci- 

 culated root-fibres. Leaves all radical, grasslike. Scape bearing a 

 panicle with corymbose branches, furnished with leaflike bracts at the 

 base of the lower branches of the panicle. Flowers white, purple on 

 the outside. 



This genus is named after Simfethis, a Sicilian nymph. 



SPECIES I.— SI ME THIS B I CO LOR. Kimtl. 



Plate IIDXLI. 



Billot, Fl. Gall, et Germ. Exsicc. No. 1552. 



S. planifolia, TFoocZs, in Engl. Bot. Suppl. No. 2952. Gren. & Godr. Fl. de Fr. Vol. III. 



p. 222. 

 Morgagnia bicolor, Btihan. Pari. Fl. Ital. Vol. II. p. 606. 

 Phalangium planifolium, Pers. Syn. Vol. I. p. 367. 

 P. bicolor, D. G. Fl. Fr. Vol. III. p. 209. 

 Anthericum planifolium, Linn. Mant. II. p. 224. 

 A. bicolor, JDesf. Fl. Atl. Vol. I. p. 304. 

 Bulbine planifolia. Bom. & Sch. Bert. Fl. Ital. Vol. IV. p. 131, 



The only known species. 



On heaths near Bournemouth, Dorset, amongst fii's. On Abbey 



