CRYPTOCORYNE. | AROIDEM. a 
floury, embryo minute, apical, cuneiform.—A single species, dis- 
tributed widely in most tropical and subtrop. countries. Pistia 
is a link to Lemnacez from Aroidee, 
P. Stratiotes, Linn. Sp. Pl. 963; Roxb, Fl. Ind. iii, 131; F, 
B. I. vi, 497; Watt E. D.; Prain Beng. Pl. 1105; Cooke Fl. 
Bomb, ii, 817.—Vern. Jal-Khumbi (Hind), 
Roots of tufted simple white fibres’ clothed with fibrille. Leaves 
obovate-cuneate, rounded or retuse at the apex, variable in breadth 
1}-4 in. long, densely pubescent on both surfaces; nerves flabellate, 
converging within the margin. Spathe about 4 in. long, obliquely 
campanulate, white gibbous and closed below, contracted about the 
middle, dilated and suborbicular above. 
Abundant within the area of this flora, floating on the surface of fresh 
water-pools and tanks. Duistris.: Throughout India and in Ceylon ; 
extending to most tropical and sub-tropical countries. It flowers in 
India in the hot season, and the seeds ripen during the rains. 
2. CRYPTOCORYNE, Fisch.; Fl. Brit. Ind. vi, 492. 
Aquatic or marsh herbs; stem short or none or with a creeping 
rootstock. Leaves broad or narrow. Spathe tubular, the margins 
connate and with a transverse septum within below. Spadix 
very slender, its tip adnate to the septum of spathe. MALe 
inflor. cylindric. Stamens 1 or 2, distinct; anthers short, sessile, 
truncate ; cells 2, with conical perforate tips, pollen vermiform. 
Fem. inflor, a single whorl of connate 1-celled many-ovuled ovaries 
with a few neuters; styles short, recurved; ovules erect, ortho- 
tropous. Fruit a fleshy synearpium of connate coriaceous 2-valved 
many-seeded carpels, the valves stellately spreading. Seedsoblong, 
_ testa rugose ; albumen copious ; embryo axile ; plumule sometimes 
germinating in the fruit.—Species 26, in Trop. Asia. 
C. retrospiralis, Kunth, Enum. iii, 12; F. B. I. vi, 493 ; Prain 
Beng. Pl. 1106 ; Cooke Fl. Bomb, ii, 818. Ambrosinia retrospiralis, 
Roxb. Fl. Ind. iii, 492. 
An aquatic herb, usually submerged. Root of fleshy fibres. Stem 
short or none. Leaves many, radical, 3-18 in. long, sessile, or with 
a short stout petiole narrowly linear or linear-lanceolate, acute or 
finely acuminate; midrib slender. Spathe subsessile, about as long 
B 
