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PARK AND CEMETERY 
Garden Plants Their Geography— XCVII.- Narcissales 
The Bromelia, Iris and Agave Alliance. 
The important group of ornamental plants included 
under the above term would, I think, be better distin- 
guished as Iridales, for not only are the Irises more 
widely distributed and distinct from lilies, but they 
exhibit the epigynous character as well or better than 
Narcissus. There are 17 tribes, 198 genera, and 2,250 
species, a few of which, such as the Tillandsieae, have 
their ovaries free or nearly free. They are largely 
tropical and sub-tropical and in habit vary considera- 
bly. Several are climbers, such as the Alstrcemerieae 
and Dioscorese, represented north by Dioscorea villosa 
and Tamus communis. A few are tree-like with low, 
woody stems, such as Puya, Hechtia, Doryanthes, and 
Agave sometimes. The curious Vellozias and Barba- 
cenias, too, have stems a few feet high, often built up 
by adding layer upon layer of roots to their outsides 
ANANASSA SATIVA VARIEGATA. 
in the manner of some tree ferns. Several of the 
Agaveae have tree-like flower stems of 20 to 30 feet 
high. All these are warm country genera whose leaves 
have frequently thorny margins or points. Many of 
the Bromeliads are epiphytal and a few extend to Flor- 
ida ; in fact, the '‘Spanish moss” Tillandsia usneoides is 
found north to southeast Virginia. This plant differs 
so remarkably from the Pineapple, the best known of 
all Bromeliese, that hardly anything can better illus- 
trate the varying effect of plants within quite narrow, 
systematic limits. 
The majority of the warm and cold temperate spe- 
cies are rhizomatous, cormouls, bulbous, tuberous, 
fibrous rooted and sometimes aquatic herbs, with vari- 
ous sword-shaped and often two-ranked leaves. These 
have parallel veins converging at the points — ‘even, too, 
in such netted broad-leaved genera as Dioscorea. A 
very large proportion of the flowers are brilliantly col- 
ored, and not infrequently highly fragrant, as in Iris, 
Freesia, Narcissus, Polianthes, Crinum and others. 
The main distribution of the hardier species is from 
the Mediterranean and Himalayan regions northward 
and eastward, but there is a wide field in the warmer 
Gardener' s Chronicle. 
IRIS TAURI. 
United States for the cultivation of sub-tropical kinds 
from the Himalayas, North Africa, South Africa more 
especially, Australasia and the elevated parts of South 
America. 
There are scores of fine species of the Iridese, Ixieae 
and Amaryllideae of those regions well worth looking 
after for the south and Pacific coasts. 
Gardener's Chronicle , 
MORiEA. ROBINSONIAN A, THE “WEDDING FLOWER.” LORD 
HOWE’S ISLAND. 
