106 
AMARYLLIDACEyE. 
no care, except perhaps watering- in dry summers. We pos- 
sess only, as far as I know, the tender edulis, the Chilian 
salsilla, and the Mexican hirtella and acutifolia, unless a 
Chilian variety of ovata figured in the Bot. Mag. be in this 
country. B. hirtella will live well at the foot of a south wall, 
sawdust being heaped over the roots in winter. With me it 
flourishes against the front of a greenhouse, and twines up a 
pole to the height of about eight feet. Acutifolia has lived 
through a winter in the same situation, but it does not go 
to rest like hirtella for six months or more, and therefore is 
much more liable to injury, and requires more protection, 
but it is impatient of heat under glass in the summer. Its 
root is less tuberous and substantial, but it will succeed in 
an open border if set deeper and covered with leaves to pro- 
tect it from the frost. There is a rage at present for the 
introduction of Orchideous plants, of which the greater part 
cannot compare with the Amaryllidaceous in beauty, and 
require a degree of heat, and a damp atmosphere, which is 
very unpleasant to the cultivator, and no pains are taken to 
introduce the rich variety of splendid plants in this natural 
order, which the western continent possesses in its temperate 
and even cold regions. I wish that I could excite some of 
our wealthy cultivators to turn their thoughts to the acqui- 
sition of the plants here described, and their numerous 
kindred, which are profusely scattered over the slopes of the 
Andes, and waste their beauties in the woods, as yet un- 
noticed by any European traveller. 
17. Sphjerine. — Stalk straight, attenuated upwards; pe- 
duncles simple ; sepals equal ; petals equal ; style 
and filaments straight (leaves subrigid ; perianth 
under an inch) ; capsule indehiscent. 
A perfect diagnosis of the genus cannot he obtained; the 
perianth and germen appear to conform with the smallest 
flowered Bomareas, hut on the authority of Ruiz all the spe- 
cies with a short straight stem have an indehiscent capsule, with 
a little pulp , and , if so, they cannot he Bomareas ; and, when- 
ever they can be inspected, further differences will he found. 
The specimen with fruit, probably immature, in Mr. Lambert’s 
herbarium (see PI. 12. fig. 4.) has the fruit spherical, quite 
unlike that of Bomarea. Imperfect as my knowledge of this 
genus is, I cannot set down as Bomareas plants which are as- 
serted to have an indehiscent capsule. I believe that a material 
