Susyrinchium. ] LXXXII. IRIDEA. . 451 
lil. SISYRINCHIUM. SISYRINCHIUM. 
Rootstock tufted or fibrous. Leaves grass-like or lanceolate, entirely 
or most radical. Flowers of a delicate blue. Perianth-segments 6, 
all nearly equal, similar and spreading, the tube short and broad. 
Stamens united in a tube. Stigmas 38, filiform, undivided, rolled 
inwards, 
A considerable genus, almost exclusively American. 
1. S. angustifolium, Mill. (fig. 1020). Blue-eyed Grass.—Leaves 
narrow, grass-like, sheathing at the base, shorter than the stem. Stem 
6 inches to 1 foot high, 2-edged, or with 2 narrow acute wings, rather 
broader under the erect bracts. Flowers 1 to 4 together in a terminal 
cluster, the filiform pedicels almost concealed within 2 sheathing lan- 
ceolate bracts, of which the outer one often ends in a leafy tip exceed- 
ing the flowers, but occasionally both are nearly equal. Fruit a small 
globular capsule. S. bermudiana of former editions. 
In moist meadows, woods and grassy places, very common through- 
out North America. In Britain near Kerry and Galway, in Ireland, 
where there seems no ground to suppose that it can have been intro- 
duced by human agency. Fl. summer. 
IV, ROMULEA. ROMULEA. 
Small bulbous plants, with the foliage and flowers of Crocus, except 
that the perianth-tube is very short, and the short stigmas are deeply 
2-cleft. } 
A genus of very few species, chiefly from the Mediterranean region. 
1. R. Columnae, Seb. and Maur, (fig. 1021). Common R.—Bulb 
small, with shining brown coats, Leaves very narrow and grass-like, 
spreading, 3 or 4 inches long, sheathing at the base. Flower-stalk not 
half so long, with a single erect terminal flower, almost sessile in a 
sheathing bract, and of a pale purplish-blue, with a yellow centre. 
Perianth near # inch long, the segments half-spreading and rather 
pointed. TZrichonema Bulbocodium of former editions. 
In heaths and sandy places, chiefly near the sea, nearly all round the 
Mediterranean, and up the western coasts of Europe, to the Channel 
Islands and Dawlish in Devon, where it abounds at the Warren, FI. 
spring. 
ee 
V. CROCUS. CROCUS. 
Rootstock bulbous, the outer coating fibrous, and more or less netted, 
or rarely membranous. Leaves radical, narrow-linear. Flowers almost 
sessile among the leaves, with a very long tube, and a campanulate limb 
of 6 nearly equal segments. Stigmas dilated and coloured at the top, 
and often cut or fringed, but not petal-like. Capsule buried among 
the leaves. 
A south European and west Asiatic genus, a few species extending 
into central Europe, and several, long since cultivated for ornament, 
and one for saffron collected from the stigmas, have established them- 
selves in a few localities still farther north. 
