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which arches over it, and is either pale green or a dark glossy 

 brown, often striped with white. 



There are usually two leaves, which are three-parted, graceful 

 in shape and beautifully veined. The leaf-stalks are sheathing 

 at base and enclose that of the flower-cluster. The staminate 

 plants are often smaller and paler than the pistillate and wither 

 as soon as they have discharged their pollen. Their flowers 

 consist of only 2-4 almost sessile, white or purple anthers, borne 

 on the fleshy mucilaginous base of the spadix. The pistils are 

 crowded together, without calyx or corolla, green, globose and 

 tipped with a sessile white stigma; occasionally a few stamens 

 may be found above the pistils. The fruit cluster, when ripe, 

 is usuaUy prostrate, from 1-3 inches long and the berries are 

 bright scarlet. 



Plukenet appears to have been the first to figure this plant 

 and he described it in his Phytographia in 1691 as "Arum 

 triphyllum minus atrorubente" from plants sent to him by Ban- 

 nister from Virginia. Linnaeus in his Species Plantarum, 1753, 

 quoted this description and called it "Arum triphyllum." It 

 resembles some of the European species of Arum and belongs 

 to the Araceae, a family of plants, most of which are tropical 

 in their distribution and which includes about 105 genera and 

 over 900 species, many of them being large and showy plants 

 often climbing on trees and rocks. 



Elizabeth G. Britton. 



