Ornitho<jalam.] liliace^. 501 



II. Ornithogalum, Lhin. Star of Bethlehem. 



" Perianth spreading, of fi sepals, persistent. Stamens hypogy- 

 nous, scarcely adheiing to the perianth, alternately larger or 

 dilated at the base. Capsules with 3 angles and 3 furrows. — 

 Flowers white, racemose or corymbose, on a leafless scape. Brac- 

 teas membranaceous." — Br. Fl. 



1. . umbellatmn, Ij. Common Star of Bethlehem. "Racemes 

 corymbose, peduncles longer than the bracteas, filaments subu- 

 late simple."— ^r. Fl. p. 441. E. B. t. 130. 



p. " Leaves very slender, lineav-iiliform." — Br. Ft. Bertol. Fl. Ital. iv. p. 95. 



In meadows, thickets and pastures ; rare in an apparently native condition ; 

 rather more frequent as naturalized about houses in fields, orchards, and on lawns. 

 Fl. April— June. If. 



E. Med. — Naturalized on the lawn behind Osboi-ne house, 1846. In a hay- 

 field at Newchurch, in some abundance, 1846, but the meadow was some thirty 

 years ago the site of cottage-gardens. Meadows about Steephill, in several places, 

 appearing to me truly wild, Albert Hambrough, Esq., and Dr. Martin .'.'.' 



W. Med. — A few plants found in Calbourne New Barn Hummet, 1845, appa- 

 rently quite wild. In a pasture by Afton house, G. Kirkpatrick, Esq. In North- 

 wood park, apparently wild, Miss G. Kilderbee .'.'.' I believe it does not flower in 

 this last station, where it is too near the shrubbery to be above suspicion. 



(3.* Whole plant quite smooth and glabrous. Bulbs ovate, lying rather deep 

 in the ground and increasing fast laterally, hence thickly clustered and cohering, 

 covered with a pale brown epidermis, white internally and full of a clammy juice. 

 Leaves all radical, not numerous (about 3 to 5 or 6), soon turning yellow and 

 withered at the tips, very weak and flaccid, deeply channelled and almost invo- 

 lute, bluntish, grass-green, with a silvery white pellucid line along their upper 

 side, strongly striato-costate beneath, and appearing powdered all over with mi- 

 nute lucid points or granules, variable in length and breadth, in the variety now 

 described about equalling the flower-stem or rather shorter, very narrowly linear, 

 and tapering to a thread-like tenuity at their junction with the bulb. Stem soli- 

 tary, erect, terete, wavy, filled with loose cellular tissue, from a few inches to a 

 foot in length, pale green above, white and gradually tapered below. Corymb 

 terminal, lax, simple or only slightly compounded, of several divaricate, unequal, 

 naked, single-flowered peduncles, the lower of which are curved upward or ascend- 

 ing, and rise to the level of the higher and much shorter ones. Bracts solitary at 

 the base of the peduncles and somewhat clasping, linear-lanceolate, taper-pointed, 

 membranous, soon becoming withered and scariose, much shorter than (at least 

 the lower) the peduncles. Flowers large, above an inch in diameter, expanding 

 for a short time only in the early part of the day and in fine weather, few, from 

 3 to 5 in the large bundle of specimens before me, sometimes much more nume- 

 rous (5 — 20, M. et K.) Segments of the perianth elliptic-lanceolate, milk-white 

 within and faintly striated, with a broad central stripe of pale green on the back ; 

 3 inner segments somewhat smaller and narrower, bluntish ; the 3 outer more ob- 

 long, subapiculate, with thickened glandulose tips. Stamens erect; filaments 

 white, flat, simple, lanceolate, attenuated into subulate points, those opposite the 

 inner segments of the perianth rather longer and considerably broader than the 

 rest; a«</ie»-s cream-coloured, erect, elliptical, bursting laterally, attached by the 

 middle of their backs; ;)oWere lemon-yellow. Germen large, obconic, yellowish 

 green, shining and depressed at top, in 6 prominent, yellowish, blunt lobes. Style 

 shorter than the stamens, 3-angled, 3-furrowed ; stigma 3 glaudulose decurrent 

 lobes on the summit of the angles. 



the text 



[As the form /3. only is described, we presume that all the stations given in 

 ;ext refer to this variety. — -BrZrs.] 



