ORONTIUiM AQUATICUM. — GOLDEN CLUB. \0^ 



ica," says it is an old Greek word, orontioii, the etymology of 

 which is entirely lost in obscurity. The same name is said to 

 have belonged to an herb known to the ancients, and used in 

 baths or fomentations as a remedy for the jaundice; "and we 

 are told by Dr. Smith," writes Dr. Barton, " that some have sus- 

 pected it to be a corruption of Origanum ; while Prof. Martyn 

 thinks the word comes from ogao, to see, a notion founded on a 

 gratuitous assumption of the plant being serviceable to the eye- 

 sight." Dr. Pfeiffer, the distinguished German botanist, in a 

 work recently published by him, suggests that possibly Linnsus 

 had the river Orontes in mind when he named the genus. The 

 Orontes of the ancients, now called Bahr-el-asi by the Turks, is a 

 river in Syria, emptying into the Mediterranean, and which has its 

 source near Baalbec, a jjlace celebrated for its wonderful ruins. It 

 is difficult, however, to imagine what connection this river could 

 have had with Orontium in the mind of tlie great father of modern 

 botany; especially as our species, from which he named the genus, 

 is exclusively American, and as no closely allied plant seems to 

 grow in the waters of this ancient stream. If we might be al- 

 lowed to venture a guess of our own, we would say that the name 

 is probably derived from the same root from which the Latin 

 atirtim, gold, is derived ; for undoubtedly the beautiful, bright 

 golden spadix must have struck I^innaeus quite as forcibly as it 

 did those among the people who first gave the plant its common 

 name of Golden Club. But if guessing should be out of order, 

 we shall have to say, with Dr. Gray and other American bot- 

 anists, that the origin of the name is obscure. 



The structure of the seeds in the Orontium aqtiaiicum, as in 

 most aroid plants, is a very interesting subject of study. These 

 seeds have no albuminous matter on which the young plant can 

 feed until it is able to draw its support from the ground. But 

 the young plant must necessarily get its nourishment somewhere, 

 and Nuttall, therefore, says that the " gemmula (/. c, the germ in 

 the seed) is viviparous, or commencing to vegetate as soon as 

 mature," or in other words, that it commences to grow before it 



