Addisonia 51 



(Plate 146) 



ORONTIUM AQUATICUM 

 Golden-club 



Native of the southeastern United States 

 Family Aracea© Arum Family 



Orontium aquaticum L. Sp. PI. 324. 1753. 



An aquatic plant with the thick rootstock buried in the mud, 

 the leaves ascending or floating, according to the depth of the 

 water, and a slender round scape terminated by a cylindric golden 

 spadix. The leaves have petioles sometimes two feet long, or 

 often only a few inches long; the blades are oblong-elliptic, entire, 

 acute or cuspidate at the apex, acute at the base, deep blue-green 

 or dull green above, pale beneath, up to twelve inches long and 

 five inches wide. The scape is up to two feet long in deep water, 

 and is somewhat flattened near the spadix. The spathe is two to 

 four inches long and encloses the spadix when young, but soon 

 falls away or remains as a sheathing bract at its base. The spadix 

 is one to three inches long, cylindric, acuminate above, and is a 

 quarter to three eighths of an inch in diameter, becoming much 

 thickened in fruit. The flowers, of a bright yellow, are perfect, 

 and are densely crowded on the spadix. The perianth-segments 

 are four to six (the lower flowers usually with six, the upper with 

 four), and are imbricate over the ovary. The stamens are as many 

 as the perianth-segments; the linear filaments are wider than the 

 small anthers. The obtusely angled ovary is one-celled, depressed, 

 partly immersed in the axis of the spadix, and contains a single 

 ovule. The fruit is dark green, nearly globose, and about a half 

 inch in diameter. 



An odd member of the arum family, to which also belongs the 

 jack-in-the-pulpit. The family has in the temperate regions com- 

 paratively few representatives, but in the tropics it is widely dis- 

 tributed, some kinds forming robust vines which climb tall trees, 

 often so entangling the surrounding vegetation as to make tropical 

 forests all but impenetrable. The genus Orontium contains but a 

 single species, which is found inhabiting swamps, ponds, and streams 

 from Massachusetts to central Pennsylvania, and south to Florida 

 and Louisiana, mainly near the coast. It is sometimes known as 

 floating arum, water-duck, and tawkin. It is an attractive plant 

 for water or swamp gardens. The plant from which the illustration 



