LILIACEOUS PLANTS. 319 
Tooth Violet. One of these, the Lilium Chalcidonicum, covers 
_ the plains of Syria with its scarlet flowers. 
The Hemerocallee, or Day Lilies, have the calyx and corolla 
joined together, so as to form a tube of considerable length. The 
fragrant Tube Rose and Agapanthus belong to this division, and 
the Aloes resemble them in almost all their parts, except the thick 
succulent foliage. 
The Asperagee includes the Common Asparagus and the Lily of 
the Valley, Dracena and Ruscus. The geographical limits of the 
order are as wide as its differences. Aloes abound in the southern 
parts of Africa. The Dragon-trees, the most gigantic of the order, 
attain their greatest size in the Canaries, where the Dragon-tree of 
Orotava (Plate VI.) is described as being between seventy and 
Seventy-five feet high and forty-six feet in circumference at the 
base All travellers to Teneriffe visit this gigantic Lily, which 
18, according to tradition, an object of adoration to the Guanchos, 
who are the primitive people of these islands. It is probably long 
anterior to historic times. At the conquest of Teneriffe by the 
iards, it was already as large and as hollow as it is to-day. 
“This gigantic tree,” says Von Humboldt in his “ Pictures of 
Nature,” “grows in the garden of M. Franchi in the little villa 
‘ys Orotava, called Taora, one of the most beautiful spots in the 
civilised world. In 1799, when we ascended the peak of Teneriffe, 
_ We found that this enormous vegetable was forty-five feet in cir- 
cumference a little above the root. Sir George Staunton asserts 
that at the height of ten feet the tree is twelve feet in diameter. 
tradition reports that this tree was an object of veneration to the 
Guanchos, as the Elm of Ephesus was to the ancient Greeks; and 
__ that in 1402, when Bethencourt visited the island, it was as large 
; And 48 hollow as it is now. The most gigantic Dragon-tree that 
I have seen in the Canary Isles was sixteen feet in diameter ; it 
e Lies to enjoy an eternal youth, and still bore flowers and fruits. 
ie When Bethencourt, the French adventurer, conquered the For- 
: ate Isles in the sixteenth century, the Dragon-tree of Orotava 
/ - found to be as sacred in the estimation of the natives as was 
| 5 oo of the Athenian Acropolis in the eyes of its inhabitants. 
ee deseri das being of the same colossal dimensions as it has 
~~ I our day. In the Torrid Zone a forest of Cxsalpina 
is 
