ARUM FAMILY. 



317 



112. ARACE-ffil, ARUM FAMILY. 



Plants with pungent or acrid watery juice, leaves mostly with 

 veins reticulated so as to resemble those of the first dass, flowers 

 in the fleshy head or spike called a spadix, usually furnished with 

 the colored or peculiar enveloping bract called a spathe. 



There are several stove-plants of the family now rather common 

 in choice collections, mostly species and varieties of Caladium, cul- 

 tivated for their colored and variegated foliage. 



§ 1. Leaves with expanded blade, and loilh spreading neixes or veins, never linear. 

 « Flowers wholly destitute of calyx and corolla. 



1. ARISjEMA. Leaves compound, only one or two, with stalks sheathing the 



simple stem, which rises from a fleshy corm, and terminates in a long spadix 

 bearing flowers only at its base, where it is enveloped by the convolute lower 

 part of the greenish or purplish spathe. Sterile flowers above the fertile, 

 each of a few sessile anthers; the fertile each a 1-celled 5-6-ovuled ovary, 

 in fruit becoming a scarlet berry: commonly dioecious, the stamens being 

 abortive in one plant, the pistils abortive in the other. 



2. COLOCASIA. Leaves simple, peltate, and with a notch at the base. Spathe 



convolute, yellowish, much longer than the spadix: the latter covered with 

 ovaries at base, above with some abortive rudiments, still higher crowded 

 with numerous 6-8-celled sessile anthers, and the pointed summit naked. 



3. PELTANDRA. Leaves arrow-shaped; these and the scape from a tufted 



fibrous root. Spathe convolute to the pointed apex, green, wavy-margined. 

 Spadix long and tapering, covered completely with flowers, i. e. above with 

 naked shield-shaped anthers each of 5 or 6 cells, opening by a hole at the 

 top, below with one-celled ovaries bearing several erect ovules, in fruit a 

 l_,3.seeded fleshy bag. Seeds obovate, surrounded by a tenacious jelly. 



4. RICHARDIA. Leaves arrow-shaped; these and the long scape from a short 



tuberous rootstock. Spathe broad, spreading above, bright white, convolute 

 at base around the slender cylindrical spadix, which is densely covered above 

 with yellow anthers, below with ovaries, each incompletely 3-ceUed, and con- 

 taining several hanging ovules. 

 6. CALL A. Leaves heart-shaped, on long petioles; these and the peduncles from 

 a creeping rootstock. Spathe open, the upper face bright white, spreading 

 widely at the base of the oblong spadix, which is wholly covered with 

 flowers; the lower ones perfect, having 6 stamens around a 1-celled ovary; 

 the upper often of stamens only. Berries red, containing a few oblong seeds, 

 surrounded with jelly. 



* * Flowers with a perianth, perfect, covering the whole spadix. 



6. SYMPLOCARPUS. Leaves ovate, very large and veiny, short-petioled, ap- 



pearing much later than the flowers from a fibrous-rooted corm or short 

 rootstock. Spathe shell-shaped, ovate, incurved, thick, barely raised out of 

 ground, enclosing the globular spadix, in which the flowers are as it were 

 nearly immersed. Each flower has 4 hooded sepals, 4 stamens with 2-celled 

 anthers turned outwards, and a 1-celled 1-ovuled ovary tipped with a short 

 awl-shaped style : the fruit is the enlarged spongy spadix under the rough 

 surface of which are imbedded large fleshy seeds. 



§ 2. Leaves linear, fiag-like, nerved: spadix appearing lateral. 



7. ACORUS. Spadix cylindrical, naked, emerging from the side of a 2-edged 



simple scape resembling the leaves, densely covered with perfect flowers. 

 Sepals 6, concave. Stamens 6, with linear filaments and kidney-shaped an- 

 thers. Ovary 2-3-celled, with several hanging ovules in each cell, becoming 

 dry in fruit, ripening only one or two small seeds. 



1. ARISJEMA, ESTDIAN TURNIP, &c. (Name altered from Arum, to 

 which these plants were formerly referred.) Wild plants of rich woods, fl. 

 in spring, veiny-leaved, their turnip-shaped corm farinaceous, but imbued 

 with an intensely pungent juice, which is dissipated in dryin-;. 11 



A. triph^^llum, Common Indian Tdrnip. In rich woods ; leaves mostly 



2, each of .'3 oblonij jiointed leaflets ; stalks and spathe cither green or variegated 

 ■with whitish and dark-purple stripes or spots, the latter with broad or flat 

 summit incui-ved over the top of the club-shaped and blunt spadix. 



