section, to be so many prominent cells, forming a kind 
of short bristles, each enclosing a bundle of raphides or 
small acicular crystals, which are laid close side by side. 
These crystals are here, as is constantly the case, enclosed 
within prominent utricles, and may be easily extracted 
from them ; but what is very remarkable, is, that the adjoin- 
ing cells which form the rest of the substance between these 
cavities, never present any of those crystals which abun- 
dantly coat all the cavities of the plant. 
The foliage of this plant is the seat of a waxy secretion, 
which, though scanty in cultivated individuals, yet is pro- 
duced in considerable quantities, when this and some other 
ARoIDEz# grow in a genial and native climate. This secre- 
tion is formed exclusively on the lower face of the leaf, and 
Is confined to the axils of its principal nerves, where the 
cellular tissue produces it, and from which points this waxy 
substance extends sometimes over nearly the whole inferior 
surface of the foliage. In the cultivated plant, it only exists 
in areal scales, at the utmost not larger than the human 
nail. 
_ Descr. Caudex four to six feet high, and four to six 
inches in diameter, marked with the scars of the fallen 
leaves, and crowned with ample, cordate, petiolated foliage. 
From the axils of these leaves the short flower-stalks appear 
in pairs. Spatha a span long, contracted below the middle, 
then expanding into a boat-shaped membrane. . Spadix 
shorter than the spatha, club-shaped : the base clothed all 
round with nearly globose, green pistils, (the female flow- 
ers,) crowned with the broad nearly sessile stigma. Then, 
for about two inches the circumference is occupied with 
hexagonal, elongated, abortive stamens, above these with 
numerous perfect stamens (fig. 1 and 2). The large, club- 
bed, fleshy apex, marked with numerous sinuosities, is 
clothed with stamens still more imperfect than those below 
the perfect ones, and which seem to have run together in 
one fleshy mass. 
Fig. 1.2. Stamens. 3. Pistil: magnified. 
