316 PINE FAMILY. 



Class IL MONOCOTYLEDONOUS or ENDOGENOUS 

 PLANTS : Distinguished by having the woody matter of the 

 stem in distinct bundles scattered without obvious order 

 throughout its whole breadth, never so arranged as all to 

 come in a circle, when abundant enough to form proper 

 wood as in Palms and the like, this is hardest and the 

 bundles most crowded toward the circumference. Embryo 

 with a single cotyledon ; the first leaves in germination 

 alternate. Leaves mostly, but not always, parallel-veined. 

 Parts of the flower almost always in threes, never in fives. 

 See Lessons, p. 117, and for style of vegetation, p. 19, fig. 47. 



The plants of this class may be arranged under three gen- 

 erally well-marked divisions. 



I. SPADICEOUS DIVISION. Flowers either naked, i.e. 

 destitute of calyx and corolla, or these if present, not brightly 

 colored, collected in the sort of spike called a spadix, which is 

 embraced or subtended by the kind of developing bract termed a 

 spathe. The most familiar examples of this division are otFered 

 by the Arum Family. To it also belong on one hand the Palms, 

 on the other the Pond weeds — here merely mentioned, as follows : — 



Skbal Palmetto, Cabbage Palmetto, of the sandy coast from N. Car- 

 olina S., our only tree of the class, with 



S. serrul^ta, Saw Palmetto, of the Southern coast, the trunk of which 

 creeps on the ground, and the short petioles arc spiny-margined, whence the 

 popular name, 



S. Adansdnii, Dwarf Palmetto, the leaves of which, rising from a, 

 stem underground, are smooth-edged, and 



Chamserops H^strix, Blue Palmetto of S. Carolina, &c., with erect 

 or creeping trunks only 2° -3° long, and pale or glaucous leaves 3° -4° high ; 

 — these represent with us the Palm Family. 



Potamog^ton nutans, and other species of Pondweed abound ia 

 ponds and streams, and represent the Naiadace.i; or Pondweed Family, — 

 plants of various forms but of little interest — in fresh water. 



Zostera marina, Grass- Wkack or Eel-Grass of salt water, with its 

 long ribbon-like bright green leaves, and llowers hidden in their upper sheaths, 

 represents the same family in shallow bays of the ocean. 



L6mna polyrhiza, Duckweed, consisting of little green grains, about 

 i'-J' long, floating on stagnant water, producing a tuft of hanging roots from 

 their lower face, never here found in blossom, 



L. minor, still smaller and with only a single root, — and the less common 



L. trisulea, which is oblong-lanceolate from a stalk-like base, — all propa- 

 gating freely by budding from llie side and separating, — are greatly simi)Iiricd 

 little plants re])resenting the Lemnacic.e or Duckweed Family, their mi- 

 nute flower rarely seen. See Manual ; also Structural Botany, p. 70, fig. 102. 



