The ornamental species are very numerous, the principal genera being Narcissiis, Galanthus (snowdrop), Leucoium (snowflake), Hippeastrum, Amaryllis, Vallota, Crinum, Alstrœmeria, Agave, Fourcroya. The single genus found in New Zealand is widely diffused.
1. HYPOXIS, Linn.
Small herbs. Rhizome bulbous or tuberous, coated with a membranous or fibrous sheath. Leaves radical, narrow, flat or terete, often hairy. Scape 1- or many-flowered. Perianth regular, tube wanting; segments 6, nearly equal, spreading. Stamens 6, inserted on the base of the segments and shorter than them; anthers erect, linear or oblong, dorsifixed. Ovary inferior, 3-celled; ovules numerous in each cell, 2-seriate; style short, columnar; stigmas 3, stout, erect, distinct or connate. Capsule globose or oblong, membranous, 3-valved or circumscissile below the top. Seeds small, subglobose; testa crustaceous, shining, usually more or less beaked at the hilum.
Species over 50, mainly confined to southern or tropical Africa, a few only in Asia, Australasia, or America.
1. H. pusilla, Hook. f. Fl. Tasm. ii. 36, t. 130b.—Very small, 1–2 in. high. Rhizome globose, bulb-like, clothed with the setose remains of the old leaves, ⅓ in. diam. Leaves 3–6, ½–2 in. long, filiform, wiry, flexuous, grooved down the inner face, base widened into a scarious sheath. Scapes shorter than the leaves, 1–3-flowered. Flowers small, ⅙ in. diam. Perianth-segments ovate-lanceolate, acute. Stamens short, not half as long as the perianth-segments; anthers linear, basifixed. Stigmas lanceolate, free. Capsule globose, ⅛ in. diam.—Hook. f. Handb. N.Z. Fl. 275; Benth. Fl. Austral. vi. 449. H. hygrometrica, Hook. f. Fl. Nov. Zel. i. 253 (not of R. Br.).
North Island: Hawke's Bay, Colenso. South Island: Marlborough—Sandy ground near the mouth of the Wairau River, J. Macmahon! Canterbury—Banks Peninsula, Travers, Armstrong! Cockayne! Canterbury Plains, Armstrong! November–April.
Probably not uncommon on the eastern side of the South Island, but very easily overlooked. Also a native of Victoria and Tasmania.
Order LXXXII. LILIACEÆ.
Perennial herbs, rarely shrubs or trees. Root fibrous, or rhizome tuberous or bulbous or creeping. Stem herbaceous or woody, erect or climbing, tall or scarcely produced beyond the radical leaves. Leaves usually in radical tufts, or crowded at the ends of the stems or branches, or scattered along the branches, very various in size, shape, and texture. Flowers usually regular, hermaphrodite or rarely unisexual, inflorescence very various. Perianth inferior, petaloid; tube long or short; limb 6-lobed or -par-
