XXIII.— ANALYTICAL DRAWINGS OF 
LILIACEiE. 
T HE great variety of type within the limits of a single Family is well represented 
by the eight members of the Family Liliace# that are figured on this Plate. 
The Order Liliiflor# comprises plants, either herbaceous or arborescent, which 
have generally a flower of fifteen parts in five whorls of three, though one whorl 
of stamens is sometimes absent. The perianth may be homochlamydeous , i.e. with 
both whorls alike, or heterochlamydeous: the ovules are usually anatropous or inverted ; 
and the seed usually has fleshy or cartilaginous albumen. It includes the Juncace # 
and Liliace# , with a superior ovary ; and the Amaryllidace # , Dioscoreace# , and Induce#, 
in which it is inferior. 
The Family Liliace # is one of the largest, and is universally distributed, although 
a great many of its members are typically xerophytic bulbous or rhizomatous plants 
and whole Tribes are restricted to special regions. 
The inflorescences, not represented in these analyses, are generally racemose 
if only branched once, but cymose in any secondary branching. The former is 
exemplified by Narthecium , Scillu, and Convallaria ; the latter by Allium. 
The flower is usually perfect, polysymmetric, pentacyclic, trimerous, and hypo- 
gynous, with two petaloid perianth-whorls, six stamens, and an indefinite number 
of ovules in two rows in each of the three chambers of the ovary, attached to a 
central placenta. It generally secretes nectar and is pollinated by insects. Ruscus 
is exceptional in being dioecious, with inconspicuous green perianth and only one 
or two seeds ; and Paris in being generally tetramerous, thus having twenty floral 
leaves instead of the usual fifteen. 
Dr. Engler subdivides the Family into eleven Tribes, of which only four are 
represented among British plants. Of the two hundred genera we have but twenty, 
and many of these are represented by single species. There are little more than 
thirty truly British species. 
In the Tribe Melanthioide #, represented here by Narthecium and Colchicum , the 
characters are very varied, the underground stem being either a bulb, a corm, or a 
rhizome ; the anthers bursting inwards ( introrse ) or outwards ( extrorse ) ; and the 
capsule either through the midribs of the carpellary leaves ( loculicidally ), or between 
their edges ( septicidally ). The inflorescence is, however, uniformly terminal ; and 
the fruit is never a berry. 
The first row of figures on our Plate is the analysis of Narthecium , the Bog 
Asphodel. The first figure is one of the star-like blossoms ; the second, one of the 
“ villous ” or hairy filaments, after its anther has withered. The third is a young 
fruit around which the perianth-leaves (now ascending) and the filaments persist ; 
the fourth shows the same enlarged ; the fifth, the remarkable elongated seed ; the 
sixth, the same enlarged ; and the seventh, a section. 
