FAMILIES OF FLOWERING PLANTS. 



17 



OKDKlt PANDAXALES. 



Family Pandanaoeae. — Screw-pine Family. Two genera, natives 

 exclusively of the tropics of the Old World. The j)lants are dis- 

 tinguished l)y their long and attenuate leaves of tirni texture like those 

 of a century phmt; the margins and keel are usually spiny. The 

 small flowers, (piite destitute of any sort of perianth, are subtended 

 by numerous bracts and are borne in dense clusters; they consist of 

 many stamens and an ovary composed of a single carpel, succeeded 

 by a large and fleshy fruit with a hard or woody external surface. 

 Several species of Pniiddin/s'AVQ common foliage plants in greenhouses, 

 their long arched leaves and graceful habit rendering them particularly 

 ap})roi)riate as center pieces in groups. In their native habitat the 

 plants form impenetral)le swamps, })roducing numerous interlacing 

 aerial roots like those of the man<rrove. 



Family Typhaceae. — Cat-tail Family. This contains Init a single 

 genus, Ti/I'Jki, which is always easily recognizable. The plants are 

 stout and reed- like in ha])it, with long sword-shaped leaves and wand- 

 likc spikes which consist of in- 

 numerable tiny flowers, reduced 

 to mere stamens and pistils, 

 with no perianth or floral en- 

 velope, but with numerous in- 

 termixed ])ristles. The upper 

 portion of the spike, at flower- 

 ing time, is lighter in color ^^ 

 and less dense; this is com- 

 })osed entirely of stamens, which 

 soon fall away, leaving the pis- 

 tils below to form a cotton-like 

 mass in fruit. The flowers are 

 thus said to Ije monoecious 

 (Greek, dwelling in one house- 

 hold), because the two sexes, 

 although separate, occur on the 

 same plant. Tiji>hii contains 



aboUS 12 species, widely distril)- ^^ '■■"" enlarged. (After Brltton and Brown, m. 

 ^ ' "^ Fl. North r. S.) 



uted in temperate and tropical 



reigons, though always found in marshes. In many of our western states 



the spikes are used as "swabs" for the purpose of cleaning lamp chim- 



FiG. 1.^.— The broad-fruited bur-reed (Spargunium 

 eiiryrariiiiin) ^^ho\ving flowering branch and a detach- 



