450 THE IRIS FAMILY.  [ Gladiolus. 
their filaments. [The British plant is referable to one of the continental 
varieties of G. communis, called llyricus, Koch. . 
ee ae ee 
III. 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 
atube. Stigmas 3, filiform, undivided, rolled inwards. 
A considerable genus, almost exclusively American. 
1, S. angustifolium, Mill. (fig. 1018). 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 exceeding 
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 throughout 
North America. In Britain near Kerry and Galway, in Ireland, where 
there seems no ground to suppose that it can have been introduced by 
human agency. £7. 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. 1019). Common Romulea.— 
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 
2 inch long, the segments half-spreading and rather pointed. Zrichonema 
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. 7. 
Spring. 
oo aes 
V. CROCUS. CROCUS. 
Rootstock bulbous, the outer coating fibrous, and more or less netted, 
or rarely remaining membranous. Leaves radical, narrow-linear. Flowers 
almost sessile among the leaves, with a very long tube, anda 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 sinall south European and west Asiatic genus, a few species extending 
into central Europe, and several, long since cultivated for ornament or for 
saffron collected from their stigmas, have established themselves in a few 
localities still further north. | 
