526 



LILIACE^E. (LILY FAMILY.) 



ers; sepals dingy-green, oblanceolate or spatulate (2" -3' long), those of the 

 sterile flowers on claws, widely spreading. (Melanthium monoicum, Walt. 

 Leimanthium monoicum, Gray.) — Mountains of Virginia and southward. 



3. V. Woodii, Bobbins. Leaves lanceolate or oblong-lanceolate ; pedicels 

 ( \Lii _ 3'/ long) shorter than the flowers, the oblanceolate spreading sepals [3 ,f - 4^ n 

 long) dingy green turning brownish purple within : otherwise much as in the last, 

 of which it may be a variety • but the flowers are mostly double the size, and 

 the panicle stouter. (Plant 3° -6° high.) — Woods and hilly barrens, Green 

 Co., Indiana, Wood. Augusta, Illinois, Mead. 



7. AMlANTHIUM, Gray 



Fly-Poison. 



Flowers perfect. Perianth widely spreading ; the distinct and free petal-like 

 (white) sepals oval or obovate, without claws or glands, persistent. Filaments 

 capillary, equalling or exceeding the perianth. Anthers, pods, &c, nearly as in 

 Melanthium. Styles thread-like. Seeds wingless, obiong or linear, with a loose 

 coat, 1 -4 in each cell. — Glabrous, with simple steins from a bulbous base or 

 coated bulb, scape-hke, few-leaved, terminated by a simple dense raceme of hand- 

 some flowers, turning greenish with age. Leaves linear, keeled, grass-like. 

 (From dpiavTos, unspotted, and av6os, flower ; a name funned with more regard 

 to euphony than to good construction, alluding to the glandless perianth.) 



1. A. mUSCSetOXicum, Gray. (Fly-Poison.) Leaves broadly linear, 

 elongated, obtuse (j'-l' wide); raceme simple; pod abruptly 3-horned; seeds 

 oblong, with a fleshy red coat. (Helonias erythrosperma, Miclix.) — Open 

 woods, New Jersey and Penn. to Kentucky and southward. June, July. 



8. XEROPHYLLUI, Michx. Xerophyllum. 



Flowers perfect. Perianth widely spreading ; sepals petal-like (white), oval, 

 distinct, without glands or claws, at length withering, about the length of the 

 awl-shaped filaments. Anthers 2-celled, short, extrorse. Styles thread-like, 

 stigmatic down the inner side. Pod globular, 3-lobecl, obtuse (small), loculici- 

 dal ; the valves bearing the partitions. Seeds 2 in each cell, collateral, 3-an- 

 gled, not margined. — Herb with the aspect of an Asphodel ; the stem simple, 

 l°-4° high, from a bulbous base, bearing a simple compact raceme of showy 

 white flowers, thickly beset with needle-shaped leaves, the upper ones reduced 

 to bristle-like bracts ; those from the root very many in a dense tuft, reclined, a 

 foot or more long, 1' Avide below, rough on the margin, remarkably dry and rigid 

 (whence the name from ^npos, arid, and cfyvWov, leaf). 



1. X. asphodeloides, Nutt. (X. tenax, Nutt. X. setifolium, Michx. 

 Helonias asphodelioides, L.) — Pine barrens, New Jersey and southward: also 

 far westward. June. 



9. HELONIAS, L. Helonias. 



Flowers perfect. Perianth of 6 spatulate-oblong purple sepals, persistent, 

 turning green, shorter than the thread-like filaments. Anthers 2-celled, round- 

 ish-oval, blue, extrorse. Styles revolute, stigmatic down the inner side. Poi* 



