YELLOW AND ORANGE FLOWERS 



Golden Club 



{Orontium aquaticum) Arum family 



Flowers — Bright yellow, minute, perfect, crowded on a spadix 

 (club) I to 2 in. long; the scape, 6 in. to 2 ft. tall, flattened 

 just below it; the club much thickened in fruit. Leaves: 

 All from root, petioled, oblong-elliptic, dull green above, pale 

 underneath, 5 to 12 in. long, floating or erect. 



Preferred Habitat — Shallow ponds, standing water, swamps. 



Flowering Season — April — May. 



Distribution — New England to the Gulf States, mostly near the 

 coast. 



A first cousin of cruel Jack-in-the-pulpit, the skunk cabbage, 

 and the water-arum (see page 155), a poor relation also of the 

 calla lily, the golden club seems to be denied part of its tribal 

 inheritance — the spathe, corresponding to the pulpit in which 

 Jack preaches, or to the lily's showy white skirt. In the tropics, 

 where the lily grows, where insect life teems in myriads and 

 myriads, and competition among the flowers for their visits is 

 infinitely more keen than here, she has greater need to flaunt 

 showy clothes to attract benefactors than her northern relatives. 

 But the golden club, which looks something like a calla stripped 

 of her lovely white robe, has not lacked protection for its little 

 buds from the cold spring winds while any was needed. By the 

 time we notice the plant in bloom, however, its bract-like spathe 

 has usually fallen away, as if conscious that the pretty mosaic 

 club of golden florets, so attractive in itself, was quite able to 

 draw all the visitors needed without further help. Merely by 

 crawling over the clubs, flies and midges cross-fertilize them. 



Perfoliate Bellwort; Straw Bell 



{Uvularia perfoliata) Bunch-flower family 



Flowers — Fragrant, pale yellow, about i in. long, drooping singly 

 (rarely 2) from tips of branches ; perianth narrow, bell- 



275 



