1. MoNOCHARiA.] 14S. PONTEDERIACE^. 



so that the stem sometimes appears leafy; blade 5-nerved only 2-4" 

 long by ]-2" broad or in var. i^lantaginea linear to lanceolate, 2" by 

 •2- -6", narrow cordate or base entire. Flowers blue with short 

 pedicels reflexed after flowering, 6-12 subspicate or var. ijlantaginea 

 as few as 2-3. Pedicels • 75" or less. 



In ditches, rice-fields, etc. ! Fl. r.s. Annual. 



Eootstock very short, stem often flaccid vath the leaves floating. Perianth and 

 stamens much as in hastata. Capsule oblong. 



2. EICHORNIA, Kunth. 



Water plants rooting in mud and sometimes rhizomatous or free 

 floating by means of the swollen vascular petioles. Flowers with a 

 well-developed perianth-tube and somewhat irregular spreading limb 

 or limb distinctly 2-lipped, segments 6. Stamens 6, declinate, irregu- 

 larly inserted in the tube, upper included ; anther oblong, dorsifixed 

 near the base. Ovary sessile. Ovules very many in each cell. 

 Capsule included in the marcescent perianth, ovoid, oblong or linear, 

 very thin. Inflorescence sessile in the leaf -sheath or peduncled, 

 simply racemose, rarely panicled. 



An American and tropical African genus of which the following has become 

 A\idely naturalized. 



1. E. crassipes, Solms. Kajaropati, Or. ; Water Hyacinth. 



A very beautiful plant with sympodial rhizome creeping in mud 

 and freely floating, the termination of each joint of the sympodium 

 bearing a rosette of broadU^ spoon-shaped leaves with very turbinately 

 swollen petioles and very numerous adventitious roots. From the 

 centre of the rosette rises a sheathed scape 6-10" high of volet-blue 

 flowers. 



Frequent in Orissa. Fl. h,s. This plant now forms a sud on the Irawadi and 

 other Eurmese rivers, and can be seen drifted far out to sea. 



FAM. 159. AMARYLLIDACE^. 



Herbs, or large stout shrubs with short or elongate usually un- 

 branched stem and a terminal crown of rigid leaves ; stock bulbous 

 tuberous or a corm or rhizome, rarely merely fibrous. Leaves usually 

 radical or clustered at the apex of a caudex, sometimes shortly dis- 

 tichous, thick and fleshy or narroAv with parallel venation, rarely 

 plicate or broad or petioled. Flowers 2 -sexual regular or somewhat 

 zygomorphic, often showy, most often umbellate and with an in- 

 volucre of one or rtiore spathaceous bracts on the top of a naked 

 spathe; sometimes umbel reduced to one flower, more rarely flowers 

 cymose or panicled and then sometimes panicle gigantic. Hypan- 

 thium sometimes produced into a beak above the ovary. Perianth 

 often tubular at the base, tepals 2-.seriate, usually both series 

 similar and petaloid but sometimes different. Stamens 6 on the 

 bases of the tepals, rarely epigynous, filaments mostly alternately 

 longer and shorter, rarelj^ connate at base, but frequently with 

 stipular appendages or petaloid appendages Avhich may become 



1102 



