Family 5. LILAEACEAE 
By Norman TAYLOR 
Acaulescent, annual, marsh or salt-water plants, with radical, terete, sheath- 
ing leaves, the sheaths often containing minute, hyaline scales of inconstant 
shape. Flowers perfect or unisexual, basal, or in scapose, naked or bracted, 
spicate inflorescences. Perianth none. Basal flowers enclosed by the sheath- 
ing leaf-bases, exclusively pistillate; carpels solitary, 1-seeded, tipped by a 
long, slender style and a capitate stigma; fruit a ribbed caryopsis; the seed 
oblong-conical, with a membranous test. Scapose inflorescences of staminate, 
pistillate and perfect flowers irregularly disposed on a spike ; staminate flowers 
of a single, sessile, 2-celled anther, the connective dilated and bract-like; pis- 
tillate flowers of single, 1-seeded carpels, subtended by a bract or bractless, 
the lower with a long style, the upper with shorter styles, the stigmas papil- 
lose ; fruit a winged caryopsis, the seeds similar to those of the basal flowers, 
but smaller; perfect flowers with androecium and gynoecium similar to those 
in the unisexual flowers, but united at the base. 
Containing the single monotypic genus : 
1, LILAEA H. & B. Pl. Aequin. 1: 222. 1808. 
Heterostylus Hook. Fl. Bor. Am. 2: 171. 1838. 
Characters of the family. 
Type species, Lilaea subulata H. & B. 
1. Lilaea subulata H. & B. Pl. Aequin. 1: 222. 1808. 
Heterostylus gramineus Hook. Fl. Bor. Am. 2: 171. 1838. 
Acaulescent ; leaves acute at the apex, 5-35 cm. long, 1-4.5 mm. thick, stipular sheaths 
hyaline, 4-10 cm. long, usually striate. Basal flowers pistillate, naked, of a single carpel ; 
styles elongate, up to 20 cm. long or longer, crowned with a capitate stigma; mature fruits 
4-6.5 mm. long, ribbed. Scapose flowers spicate, the scape terete, 4-20 cm. long; spikes 
0.5-4.5 cm. long, usually many-flowered; staminate flowers.of a single, sessile anther, 
the connective dilated, oblong-cuspidate and bract-like; pistillate flowers of a single 1- 
seeded carpel, 1.5-4 mm. long, bracted or bractless, the styles 6 mm. long or longer in the 
lower flowers, much shorter in the upper flowers; mature fruits smaller than the basal 
fruits, winged. Perfect flowers occur throughout the spike with androecium and gynoecium 
similar to those of the unisexual flowers, but united at the base, bractless. 
TYPE LOCALITY: Santa-Fé de Bogota. . . 
DISTRIBUTION: British Columbia south to Mexico ; also in South America. 
ILLUSTRATIONS: H. & B. loc. cit. pl. 63; Hook. loc. cit. pl. 189 (as Heterostylus gramineus); 
Schnizl. Icon. 1: p/. 49; E. & P. Nat. Pfl. 21: f. 172; Lam. Encye. p/. 993; Mem. Torrey Club 
32: pl. 24. 
VoLUME 17, Part 1, 1909] 37 
