r
colour, their smooth and glossy surface, or the regular position of the
filaments, projecting beyond the corolla, and closing together by the
antherae, excite our notice, and claim our admiration.

Like every other heath, the hardy ones excepted, it is a greenhouse
plant, and flowers from May to July.

Our drawing was made from a plant finely blown, in the collection of
JAMES VERE, Esq. Kensington-Gore.

[190]

ORNITHOGALUM AUREUM. GOLDEN ORNITHOGALUM.

_Class and Order._

HEXANDRIA MONOGYNIA.

_Generic Character._

_Cor._ 6-petala, erecta, persistens, supra medium patens,
_Filamenta_ alterna basi dilatata.

_Specific Character and Synonyms._

ORNITHOGALUM _aureum_ foliis ovato-lanceolatis, albomargmatis,
floribus racemosis confertis, filamentis nectario emarginato
infidentibus.

We have bestowed on this plant the name of _aureum_, from the colour of
its blossoms, which are usually of a bright orange or gold colour; in
some specimens we have observed them of a paler hue, and consequently
less beautiful.

This highly ornamental species is of modern introduction, having been
received by Mess. LEE and KENNEDY, a few years since from the Cape, of
which it is a native.

The root is a whitish bulb, resembling in size and shape that of the
_Lachenalia tricolor_, figured on plate 82 of this work, from whence
spring three or four smooth, somewhat fleshy, upright, dark-green
leaves, about half an inch wide, and three or four inches long, edged
with white, and, if magnified, appearing fringed with very fine hairs or
villi; the stalk is naked, from eight to twelve inches high, supporting
many flowers, which spring from the alae of large, hollow, pointed
bracteae, and which opening one after another, keep the plant a
considerable time in flower; according to LINNAEUS'S generic character,
every other filament should be dilated at the base, in the present
species each filament is so, or rather sits as it were on a white
glandular nectary, emarginated on the inside, and highly deserving of
notice.

In the greenhouse, where this plant has hitherto been kept, its blossoms
come forth as early as January and February, and continue for several
months; they will long display their beauty, if the stem be cut off and
put in a phial of water.

It is propagated by offsets from its bulbs, and has the appearance of
being a plant of kindly growth and easy management.

[Illustration]