60 PoNTEDERIACE.-—LILLIACEZ. 
pasture than it does to Romulea. Loosening the soil, and the addition of 
lime aid in keeping down the fungus. 
The plant is proclaimed for the whole State. 
PONTEDERIACEH (PONTEDERIA FAMILY). 
A small order, including one species native to. Queensland and Northern 
Australia, but no Victorian representatives. An introduced species, the 
Water Hyacinth, has spread from Queensland, through New South Wales, 
to Victoria. The plant is a floating one, which has done serious harm 
in its home (Florida, &c.), and in its new home in Australia, by blocking 
up lakes, rivers, and water-courses. 
Eichhornia speciosa, Kunth. (Pontederia crassipes, \art.). The Water 
Hyacinth. A floating plant, the roots having a cap-like covering at the 
extremity. Stems very short, almost entirely immersed ; the leaves roundish, 
but very variable in shape; leaf-stalks long or short, more or less inflated 
below the middle, with’a sheathing scale at the base. Flowering axis 
from six to twelve inches long, with several sheathing bracts. Flowers, six 
to twelve, with a curved tube, pale-purple ; the five lower segments nearly 
equal, the upper one larger, and marked with a yellow spot in a cloud 
of blue. Stamens inserted within the tube, three long, three short; fila- 
ments lilac, with numerous stalked glands, Anthers oblong ; ovary tapering 
upwards into the style; stigma globular. 
It is a native of tropical South America. The flowers are very beauti- 
ful, and, as it flowers freely, it has been widely cultivated. The plant is 
buoyed up by the air in the swollen bases of its fleshy leaves, the roots 
hanging freely in the water or attaching themselves to the mud at the sides 
of the water-courses or lakes. In warm climates, its rapidity of growth 
and multiplication is extraordinary, but even moderate cold checks it 
severely, and moderate frost injures or kills it. It is also very intolerant 
to salt, and hence soon disappears in tidal estuaries, even although masses 
continually float down with the stream from above. Old floating masses 
may accumulate so much debris as to block together across quickly flowing 
streams, especially where any natural obstruction occurs. The plants are, 
however, easily drawn off the surface by means of floating boards or rakes 
dragged to the side by ropes. The plant has been used for fodder, but 
is not of very much value in this respect, even for cows, and is quite useless 
for sheep or horses. Tt has also been used as manure, but is very bulky, 
and rots quickly, so that it only has a very slight and temporary value as 
adding humus to the soil. The spread of the plant has been favoured by 
its cultivation in artificial ponds, &c., for the sake of its bluish-purple 
flowers. The latter, however, fade rapidly when cut. It is only likely 
to prove dangerous in the warmer parts of Victoria, where it might prove 
a serious pest in irrigation channels, lakes, and water-courses. 
Proclaimed for the whole State. 
_Litiace® (Lity Famity). 
Herbs, rarely tree-like (Yweca, Dracena), with a six partite perianth ; 
six stamens, and a superior ovary, forming, usually, a three-celled capsule. 
A large order, containing many decorative plants, a few useful as food 
(Onion, Asparagus), and some of the most poisonous plants known. These 
contain poisonous alkaloids. Thus, Veratrum contains the alkaloid Veratrin. 
No member of the order can be classed as a good fodder plant, and a 
few are troublesome weeds, difficult to eradicate on account of their 
bulbous underground stems on pastures, but all easily suppressed by culti- 
vation. 
Asphodelus fistulosus, I. This plant, known locally as the Onion 
Weed, is a native of Southern Europe. It has spread in certain districts, 
