Serpicula. monoecia tetrandria. 579 



It grows in clear, standing-, sweet water, and produces its 

 flowers during- the cold season. It consists of simple, fili- 

 form roots, and a number of fine, filiform, jointed shoots, or 

 stems, some creeping, some floating below the surface of the 

 water. 



Branches solitary, axillary. Leaves sessile, verticelled, 

 (from three to six-fold) oblong-lanceolate, or linear-lanceo- 

 late ; from one-eighth to half an inch long. Male flowers 

 axillary, sessile, from one to four in the verticel, much small- 

 er than the female. Calyx ; spatfie one-flowered, sub-globu- 

 lar, nmrexed, bursting irregularly. Perianth three-leaved. 

 Leajlets obovate, reflexed. Corol three-petalled ; petals 

 wedge-formed, reflexed. Filaments three, short, ascending. 

 Anthers very large, (wo-lobed, opening with an elastic jerk; 

 pollen white, very large grained. Female flowers in a 

 distinct plant, axillary, generally solitary, though sometimes 

 there are two from the same verticel. Spathe, perianth, and 

 corol as in the genus. No nectary. Germ sessile, subulate, 

 ending in the long, sub-erect receptacle of the flower, which 

 elevates it above the water while expanded. Sli(jmas three, 

 lanceolate. The capsule has the appearance of a siliqua, su- 

 bulate, sometimes murexed, one-celled. Seeds fvom three to 

 five, oblong, pointed at each end. lodged as in the leguminous 

 plants, their attachments 1 could not discover. 



J^^ote. When the male flowers are ready to expand, the 

 murexed spathe bursts, the flowers are then quickly detach- 

 ed, and swim remote from the parent plant, on the surface of 

 the water, in search of the female flowers; resting on the ex- 

 trenuties of the reflexed lealletsof the perianth and petals of 

 the corol. What a wonderful economy ! 



The Berhampore sugar refiners use this part while moist, to 

 cover the surface of this sugars, as clay is used in the West 

 India Islands, and in two or three days, the operation is 

 finished exceedingly well. 



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