ramus.] LXXXIV. DIOSCOKIDEjE. 455 



I. TAMUS. BLACK BKYONY. 



A single or perhaps two species, distinguished as a genus in the 

 Order by the fruit, which is a berry, not a dry capsule. 



1. T. communis, Linn. (fig. 1028). Black Bryony. — An elegant 

 climber, twining to a considerable length over hedges and bushes, 

 easily known by its bright, shining, heart-shaped leaves, with a taper- 

 ing point, and sometimes almost 3-lobed but otherwise entire. Flowers 

 small, of a yellowish-green ; the males in slender racemes, often branched 

 and longer than the leaves ; the females in much shorter and closer 

 racemes. Berries scarlet, often very numerous. 



In hedges, and open woods, and bushy places, in west-central and 

 southern Europe, extending eastward to the Caucasus, and northward 

 to Belgium. Dispersed over nearly the whole of England, and common 

 in some counties, but not found in Scotland, and in Ireland confined 

 to the banks of Lough Gill, in Sligo. Ft. spring and early summer. 



LXXXY. LILIAOE^S. THE LILY FAMILY. 



Perennial herbs, with a creeping, bulbous, or clustered root- 

 stock, and either radical leaves and peduncles, or annual bien- 

 nial, or, in a few exotic species, perennial, leafy flowering-stems. 

 Flowers hermaphrodite or rarely unisexual. Perianth inferior, 

 petal-like, with 6 divisions. Stamens 6. Ovary free, 3-celled, 

 with several ovules or rarely only one ovule in each cell. Styles 

 single, with an entire or 3-parted stigma. Fruit a capsule or 

 berry. In a very few cases the parts of the flower are reduced 

 to 4, or increased to 8. 



A large Order, widely distributed over every part of the globe, and 

 supplying several of the most gorgeous ornaments of our flower- 

 gardens. It is easily distinguished from Alismacece by the carpels 

 united into a single ovary and fruit, from Amaryllidece by the free or 

 superior ovary, from Juncece by the petal-like, coloured perianth. It 

 is usually divided into two or more Orders, variously circumscribed 

 according as the character is taken from the foliage, the fruit, the 

 seed, or the stock, none of which taken alone give a very natural 

 demarcation. A more natural arrangement appears to be to preserve 

 the whole as one large family, divided into suborders, of which five, 

 enumerated below, are represented in Britain. 



Stem leafy. 

 Stem branching. Fruit a berry. 

 Leaves short, subulate, and clustered. Flowers axillary . 5. Asparagus. 

 Leaves ovate, stiff, and prickly. Flowers on the middle of 



the leaves 6. Ruscus. 



Stems simple. 

 Fruit a berry. 

 Leaves net-veined, in a single whorl of 4 or rarely 5 . 1. Paris. 

 Leaves parallel- veined, alternate or radical. 



Flowers axillary 2. Polygonatum. 



Flowers in a terminal raceme. 

 Perianth bell-shaped. Leaves radical . . 3. Convallaria. 



