Cryptocoryne.] AvaceCB. 345 



for nearly its whole length, tip free, incurved, forming a 

 conical style with an obtuse stigma, ovules many, crowded on 

 a parietal placenta, orthotropous ; fr. ovoid, pericarp thin, 

 bursting irregularly; seeds many, sessile, oblong- or obovoid, 

 testa at length rugose, embryo minute, in copious endosperm. 

 — Monotypic. 



P. Stratiotes, L. Sp. PL 963 (1753). Drya-parandella, 5. 



Herm. Mus. 68. Burm. Thes. 222. Fl. Zeyl. n. 322. Moon, Cat. 49. 

 Thw. Enum. 331. C. P. 3334. 



Fl. B. Ind. vi. 497. Roxb. Cor. PI. t. 269. Bot. Mag. t. 4564. 



Root-fibres clothed with fibrillae; 1, 1^-4 in., tip rounded 

 or retuse, variable in breadth, puberulous on both surfaces, 

 veins i^tw or many, strong beneath, flabellately disposed, con- 

 verging within the margin ; spathe about \ in. long, obliquely 

 campanulate, white, gibbous and closed below, contracted in 

 the middle, limb nearly orbicular. 



Low country ; common in clear still water. 

 Throughout the Tropics. 



Known to the English as the ' Water-lettuce.' Occasionally found in 

 quite brackish or even salt water on the coast. 



2. CRVPTOCORVNE, Fisch. 

 Usually aquatic or marsh stemless herbs; rootstock tube- 

 rous or slender, sometimes creeping, often soboliferous ; 1. 

 radical, sessile or petioled, broad or narrow, penniveined, veins 

 spreading or nearly parallel, stipular sheaths small, leaf- 

 opposed, subulate or filiform ; spathe sessile or peduncled, 

 closed below with a transverse septum below the mouth, limb 

 short or long, open or twisted ; spadix very slender, naked 

 between the inflorescences, tip adnate by a short appendage 

 to the septum ; male fl. at the top of the spadix, anth. few 

 or many, sessile, 2-celled, connective narrow, cells truncate or 

 with a conical perforated tip ; ov. in a single whorl round the 

 base of the spadix with sometimes a few neuters intermixed, 

 connate, i -celled, style short, recurved or o, stigmas oblong, 

 ovules many, erect, orthotropous; fr. a coriaceous syncarp of 

 connate 2-valved, few- or many-seeded carpels; seeds oblong, 

 embryo in the axis of copious endosperm. — Sp. 26 ; 16 in 

 FL B. Ind. 



Tube of spathe shorter than the limb. 

 Stigmas oval or oblong. 



L. linear-lanceolate i. C. spiralis. 



L. broadly oblong or obovate . . . . 2. C. Thwaitesil 

 Stigmas globose 3. C. Nevillii. 



