ORONTIUM AQUATICUM. 



GOLDEN CLUB. 



NATURAI. OKDEK. ARACE/lv 



Orontium AQUATtCUM, Linnaius. — Leaves lanceolate, six to nine inches by two to three 

 inches, smooth, o£ a deep green, velvet-like surface above, paler beneath, on long, radical 

 petioles. Scape thick and terete, about a foot in length, closely invested by a short sheath 

 at base, and ending in a spadi.'c of a rich yellow color, covered with small, perfect, yellow 

 flowers of an offensive odor, — the upper ones often tetramerous. (Wood's Class-Boo/; of 

 Botany. See also Gray's MitJiiuil of the Botany of the Northern Umtcd States, and Chai)- 

 man's /^/oni of the Southern United States.) 



HE " Golden Club " is one of the most striking of all our 

 wild jolants, as it has certain very characteristic features 

 which are essentially its own. Although it belongs to the great 

 Ai'tiin family, few persons, when seeing the plant for the first 

 time, would suspect the relationship, for in most aroid plants the 

 spathe which surrounds the spadix immediately attracts atten- 

 tion, while in this species the spathe is entirely wanting, and the 

 spadix, therefore, is naked. But as soon as we have familiarized 

 ourselves with this fact, the relationship is seen easily enough, as 

 the spadix itself has a general resemblance to its counterpart in 

 the common garden Calla, or Richardia ^Ethiopica, which we all 

 know to be an araceous plant, and the absence of color in the 

 upper portion of the scape, that is to say, of the stalk on which 

 the spadix is mounted, shows that if the spathe had been devel- 

 oped it would probably also have been white, in which case, as a 

 matter of course, the resemblance to the Calla Lily would have 

 been still more strikins:. 



Another difference between our plant and the Richardia is to 

 be seen in the flowers, which, it is hardly necessary to observe. 



