Lophotocarpus. | CLII, ALISMACEZ (WRIGHT). 211 
near its apex; bracts widely ovate, obtuse, 6 lin. long; flowers herma- 
phrodite and male. Sepals broadly ovate, obtuse, flat, erect or sheathing 
in fruit. Petals cuneate, a little longer than the sepals, fugacious. 
Stamens 9-12 (6-10 in the male flowers); filaments complanate ; 
anthers elongate, more or less sagittate at the base, shorter than the 
filaments. Ovary compressed, rudimentary in the male flower; style 
thick, oblique. Achenes much laterally compressed, with a prominent 
toothed rib on the back and front. Seed slightly rugose.—Sagitiaria 
cordifolia, Roxb. Hort. Beng. 68, and Fl. Ind. iii. 647; Kunth, Enum. 
iii. 161; Benth. Fl. Hongk. 346; Schweinf. Beitr. Fl. Aethiop. 295. 
S. nympheifolia, Hochst. in Flora, 1842, Beibl. 133. 8. guayanensis, 
H. B. & K. Nov. Gen. et Sp. Pl. i. 250; Hook. f. Fl. Brit. Ind. vi. 561. 
Lophiocarpus gwyanensis, Micheli in DC. Monogr. Phan. iii. 62; 
Buchen, in Engl. Jahrb. ii. 484. 
Upper Guinea. Senegambia, Heudelot ! 
Nile Land. Kordofan ; in shallow stagnant pools at Tejara, Kotschy, 423! 
Also in Madagascar, Tropical Asia northwards to Hongkong, and Tropical 
America from Mexico to Paraguay. 
4, ECHINODORUS, L. C. Rich. ; Benth. et Hook. f. 
Gen. PI. iii. 1006. 
Flowers hermaphrodite. Sepals 3, herbaceous, persistent, reflexed 
or erect after flowering. Petals 3, larger than the sepals, deciduous. 
Stamens 6 to many, hypogynous; filaments subulate, compressed ; 
anthers oblong or linear-oblong, dorsifixed near the base. Carpels 
numerous, distinct, imbricate on an oblong receptacle, obovoid, attenuate 
into a persistent oblique style; stigma minute; ovule basal, erect, 
anatropous. Achenes many, obovoid or oblanceolate, congested into a 
head, strongly ribbed and crowned by the rigid aristate style. Seed 
oblong, compressed; testa membranous; embryo hooked; radicle 
thickened at the end.—Annual or perennial, acaulescent, scapigerous, 
often tall herbs. Leaves long petioled; lamina elliptic, cordate, 
lanceolate or sagittate, usually with pellucid dots or lines. Flowers in 
many-flowered verticils on narrow straight racemes, 3-bracteate at the 
nodes or-(in the African species) reduced to a single flower ; bracteoles 
many ; pedicels very short, rigid. 
Species about 14, in Tropical and North Temperate America, 
1, E. humilis, Buchen. in Pringsh. Jahrb, vii. 28. A small herb. 
Rhizome very short ; rootlets filiform. Leaves ovate, membranous, up 
to 14 by 8 lin.,a few oblong-lanceolate and 18 by 3 lin., acute or 
shortly acuminate, base rounded or slightly decurrent, with 3 nerves 
radiating from the apex of the petiole and converging towards the apex 
of the blade; petiole slender, up to 4 in. long, but usually very much 
shorter. Scapes shorter than the leaves, 1-flowered ; flowers erect. 
Sepals ovate, obtuse, 2-24 lin. long. Petals longer than the sepals, 
white. Stamens 6 (or 9, ex Micheli), 1} lin. long; anthers about half 
