Order ALISMALES 
By JoHN KUNKEL SMALL 
Marsh-inhabiting or aquatic, usually acaulescent herbs, with more or less 
elongate rootstocks which are often tuber-bearing, the scapes and petioles rush- 
like or with spongy tissues. Leaves alternate, usually basal; blades narrow 
or broad, often with basal lobes, or wanting, the phyllodia slender, thick or 
fiat. Flowers perfect, monoecious, or dioecious, borne in spikes, racemes, or 
panicles. Perianth single or double. Calyx of 3 herbaceous sepals. Corolla 
of 3 usually tender petals, or wanting. Androecium of 3-6 stamens or more; 
filaments long or short, but manifest ; anthers with inconspicuous connectives. 
Gynoecium of 3-many distinct carpels which are sometimes coherent during 
anthesis; ovary superior; style stout or slender; stigma disk-like or minute. 
Fruit a head of achenes, or follicular or capsular. 
Carpels 1- or few-ovuled, one ovule basal, the others borne in the inner angle of the ovary-cavity. 
Sepals and petals nearly similar, or the petals wanting; carpels coherent during anthesis, at 
maturity forming a capsular or a follicular fruit. Fam, 1. SCHEUCHZERIACEAE. 
Sepals and petals very dissimilar; carpels distinct, at maturity 
forming a head or a whorl of achenes. Fam, 2. ALISMACEAE. 
Carpels many-ovuled, the ovules scattered over the inner surface of 
the ovary-cavity. Fam. 3. BUTOMACEAE. 
VoLUME 17, Part 1, 1909] 39 
