Scilla.] LiLiACE^. 503 



shaped remains or the partly entire and sheathing petiole of the previous year. 

 Leaves 2, or more rarely 3, often accompanied by an additional bulb-hearing one 

 at their side, lanceolate or elliptic-lanceolate, often above a foot in length by 

 nearly 4 inches in breadth, bright green with a. slightly glaucous lint, particu- 

 larly on their paler under surface; many-ribbed, glabrous, acute, slightly attenu- 

 ated towards the very long, roundish, semicylindrical or somewhat angular pe^iote, 

 the exterior of which forms a common sheath to the inner leafstalk and flower- 

 scape; this last, arising laterally from the base of the bulb, is smooth, solid, 

 mostly about as tall as the leaves, from 10 to 20 inches high, in all my specimens 

 acutely triangular nearly throughout, the two almost winged, the dorsal one 

 flattened or becoming grooved towards the base of the scape, which still pre- 

 serves its angularity ; the semicylindrical shape ascribed to it by Smith beino;, as 

 it would appear from the accounts of other authors, of unusual occurrence. Um- 

 bel not bulb-hearing, about 2^ inches in diameter, bursting from a white mem- 

 branous spathe of 2 ovato-lanceolate, acute, many-ribbed, deciduous leaves. Flowers 

 numerous, milk-white, f ths of an inch in diameter, on rounded scabrous pedicels 

 of about the same lengtli. Segments of the perianth lanceolate, acute, longer than 

 the erect equal stamens ; filaments white, all equal in breadth, and undivided or 

 without teeth; anthers cream-coloured. Capsule green and succulent, tipped 

 with the style, inversely heart-shaped, much depressed, deeply and very obtusely 

 3-lobed, the lobes subglobose. Seeds 2 (or more frequently by abortion), 1 in each 

 cell, large, black and smooth, gibbous on the outer, plane on the inner side or 

 that next to the almost obsolete septum of the valve, with a shallow notch at the 

 acute interior angle of attachment. 



Notwithstanding the nauseous odour of the Eamsons, which is so strong as to 

 scent the air where the plant grows, as it too often does in our woods, to the 

 exclusion of every other herb, and to the great annoyance of the passer-by who 

 treads upon it, bees are attracted by the honied fluid at the base of the petals, and 

 which is most likely free from the repulsive flavour of the herb itself. 



Nearly allied to the present species is the A. tricoccum of N. America, but in 

 that plant the leaves die off' before the flowers are developed, which is not until 

 June or July. The bulb, too, appears to be ovoid and acuminate, not, as in our 

 species, elliptic-oblong, equally thick at each end. Both exhale the same detest- 

 able smell when drying for the herbarium. 



IV. Scilla, Linn. Squill. 



"Perianth of 6 sepals, spreading and deciduous. Filaments 

 filiform, glabrous, inserted on the base of the perianth. — Flowers 

 hlue or purple, racemose or corymbose, on a leajless scape without a 

 spatha." — Br. Fl. 



1. S. autumnalis, L. Autumnal Squill. Leaves several linear, 

 raceme oblong subcorymbose few-flowered, pedicels erect in fruit 

 without bracteas, bulb coated. Sm. E. Fl. ii. p. 146. Br. Fl. p. 

 441. Lind. Syn. p. 269. E. B. ii. t. 78. Curt. Fl. Lond. fasc. 

 6, t. 25 (optima). S. fallax, Steinh. Bab. Fl. Sam. p. 94. 



On short dry sandy or gravelly pasture-ground, and in grassy spots amongst 

 rocks; rare. Fl. July — September. Fr. September. If. 



E. Med. — On the sandy turf of the spit below St. Helens, in great plenty. 

 Priory, Isle of Wight, Mr. J. Woods, jun., Bot. Guide. 



Bulb with a brownish loose cuticle, very large for so small a plant, from the 

 size of a filbert to that of a nutmeg. Scapes 2—4 inches high, solitary or two or 

 three from the same bulb, flowering in succession, solid, erect, angular and fur- 

 rowed. Leaves few, extremely narrow and linear, channelled above, bluntish, 

 deep green, seldom produced with the flowers, or at least not fully developed till 

 the latter are past, and often not even then, usually shorter than the scapes and 



