83 
' [ Mep. 'No. 564. J 
In the Flag tribe, the leaves overlap each other parallelly, as in the 
Iris. The blue hag (Iris versicolor )* is often called the Snake Lily; ^.nd the 
Amaryllis Equestris, the Barbadoes Lily. 
SPADICEOTJS ELOWERS.' 
§ 1. Screw-pine tribe, or Pandanacese. 
The plants of this tribe have generally arborescent stems, usually send¬ 
ing down aerial roots. The leaves are imbricated spirally around the 
axes, so as to give the stems a sort of cork-screw appearance, before the 
trace of the leaves is worn away. Hence the aspect of the foliage of 
these plants being that of gigantic Pine-apple plants; but with a spiral ar¬ 
rangement. of their large leaves, they are called the Screw-pine tribe. 
§ 2. Banana tribe, or Musacese. 
Large herbaceous ])lants, mostly tropical ; stemless, or without a prop¬ 
er stalk; petioles, or footstalk of the leaves, long, broad, and ' sheathing, 
and thus forming a cylindrical or conical column, often \ ery large. The 
convoluted lamellae which compose these columns have parallel longitu¬ 
dinal fibres, of which’the ; central portion extends even into the midrib of 
the gigantic leaves ; which are themselves composed of thui laminw, with 
fine parallel veins diverging from the midrib to the margin. 
§ 3, Palm tribe, or Palmse. 
These plants are arborescent, v/ith sub-cylindrical stems, growing by 
the constant development of one central terminal bud; the surface of the 
stem is occasionally rough, with the dilated half-sheathing bases of the 
leaves or their scars. 
§ 1. Geography of the Lily tribe, and generalremarlts. ' 
The species of this tribe are scattered widely over the world, but they 
are much more abundant in the temperate zone than between the tropics, 
where they chiefly exist in an arborescent state, xlloes are found mostly 
in the south of Africa ; yet one species is a native of the West Indies, and 
two or three more of Arabia and the East. Dracaenas, the most gigantic 
of the order, attain their largest size in the Canary islands. A D. Draco 
is described to be from 70 to 75 feet high, and 15 or 16 feet in diameter at 
the base. In the East Indies, Liliaceous plants are rare. In New Hol- 
, land, they form a distinctly marked feature of the vegetation. In one 
section of them, called the iVloinem, the stem is usually developed, and 
sometimes arborescent, and the leaves are generally succulent. In another 
section, called Asparageae, the leaves in the stemless species are often cor¬ 
iaceous and permanent. In countries where the woody and prickly 
species of Aloes naturally abound, they are often planted as hedges; some 
species so much resemble certain species of Agave, and of Bromelia, that 
they are likely confounded by travellers in their descriptions of the uses of 
these plants.’ Hence, Karatas \A a vague name for the species of prickly- 
iea;V8dq>lantSj and for hedges, whether appertaining to the genus of Aloes, 
