318 CAT-TAIL FAMILY. 



A. Dracontium, Dragon-Arum, Dragon-root, or Green Dragon. 

 Low grounds; leaf mostly solitary, its petiole l°-2° long, bearing 7-11 

 pedate lance-oblong pointed leaflets ; the greenish spathc wholly rolled into a 

 tube with a short slender point, very much shorter than the long and tapering 

 tail-like spathe. 



2. COLOCASIA. ( The ancient Greek name of the common species. ) ^ 

 C. antiqudrum, one variety called C. esculenta ; cult, in the hot parts 



of the world for its farinaceous thick rootstocks (which are esculent when the 

 acrid principle is driven off by heat, as also the leaves), and in gardens for its 

 magnificent foliage, the pale ovate-arrow-shaped leaves being 2° -3° long when 

 well grown ; the stalk attached much below the middle, the notch not deep. 



3. PELTANDRA, ARROW-ARUM. (Name of Greek words meaning 

 shield-shaped stamen, from the form of the anthers.) Fl. summer. ^ 



P. Virginica. Shallow water : l°-2°liigh; leaves pale; the fine trans- 

 verse nerves running from the midrib and netted with 2 or 3 longitudinal ones 

 near the margin ; scapes recurved in fruit ; top of the spathe and spadix 

 rotting off, leaving the short fleshy base firmly embracing the globular cluster 

 of green berries. 



4. RICHARD lA. (Named for the French botanist, L. C. Richard.) % 

 R. Afrieana, the ^Ethiopian or Egyptian Calla, of common house- 

 culture, but a native of the Cape of Good Hope and not a true Calla, — too 

 familiar to need fuller description. 



6. CALLA, WATER ARUM. (An ancient name.) Fl. early summer. % 



C. palvistris. Cold and wet bogs from Pcnn. N. : a low and small, rather 

 handsome plant ; leaves 3' -4' long ; filaments slender ; anthers 2-celled. 



6. SYMPLOCARPUS, SKUNK CABBAGE. (Name of Greek words 

 iox fruit (frown together.) %. 



S. fOBtidus, the only species, in swamps and wet woods, mostly N. : send- 

 ing up, in earliest spring, its purple-tinged or striped spathe enclosing the head 

 of flowers, and later the large leaves, when full grown 1°- 2° long, in a cabbage- 

 like tuft ; the fruit 2' -3' in diameter, the hard bullet-like seeds almost ^' wide, 

 ripe in autumn. 



7. ACORUS, SWEET FLAG or CALAMUS. (Ancient name, from 

 the Greek, said to refer to the use as a remedy for sore eyes.) ^ 



1. A. Calamus, Common Sweet-Flag : in wet grounds ; sending up the 

 2-edged sword-shaped leaves, 2° or more high, from the horizontal pungent 

 aromatic rootstock : fl. early summer. 



113. TYPHACEiE, CAT-TAIL FAMILY. 



Marsh herbs, or some truly aquatic, with linear and straight- 

 nerved erect (unless floating) long leaves, sheathing at base, and 

 monoecious flowers on a dry ,«padix, destitute of calyx and corolla ; 

 the fruit dry and nut-like, 1 -seeded, rarely 2-seeded. 



Near to this belongs Pandanus, cult, for its foliage in some con- 

 servatories, with prickly toothed leaves crowded on woody stems. 



1. TYI'HA. Flowers indefinite, in a dense cylindrical spike terminating the long 



and simple reed-likc stem; the upper part of stamens only, mixed with long 

 liairs: the lower and thicker pnrt of slender-stalked ovaries tapering into a 

 style and below suiTouiided b}' numerous club-shaped bristles, which form 

 tlie copious down of the fruit. 



2. SPARGANIUM. Flowers collected in separate dense heads, scattered along 



the summit of the leafy stem; the upper ones of stamens only Avith some 



