2. Phrynium.] 158. MARANTACE.E. 



C. zebrina is a very beautiful plant with a crown of large velvety leaves 1-3 ft. 

 long, shaded above with bands of darker and lighter green, and piuple beneath. 

 Often growii in grass green-houses. Native of Brazil. 



3. MARANTA, L. 



Herbs Avith usually branched stem. Leaves often very ornamental 

 in colouring. Flowers j)edicelled j)aired on a common pedicel, 2-4 

 pairs enclosed in each bract of a spike of opposite distichous bracts 

 terminating the stem or its branches, proper pedicels of each flower 

 unequal. Spikes sometimes panicled. Corolla-tube longer than the 

 calyx. Two lateral staminodes petaloid, larger than the others. 

 Cucullate staminode usually with broad curved ear. Fertile stamen 

 Avith a free appendage. Ovary 1 -celled, 1-ovuled. 



An American genus of wiiich several very beautiful foliaged plants arc common 

 in grass greenhouses and verandahs in India. 



1. M. arundinacea, L. Arrowroot ; West Indian Salop. 



A branched herb 3-6 ft. high with creeping rootstock and fleshy 

 cylindrical-obovoid tubers about the size of carrots, covered with 

 pale scales which leave scars Avhen they fall. Leaves ovate-oblong 

 and up to 10" by 4-5" at base of stem, upper 4-6" ovate-lanceolate to 

 narrowly lanceolate with rounded or cuneate base. Inflorescence 

 laxly 2-chotomously branched with ultimate branches 2-fld. Fls. 

 white, • 7-1" long, sepals • 5". 



Occasionally cultivated for the starch and sometimes seen as a pot plant in 

 verandahs. 



It is the source of the true arro\vroot. 



ORDER.~G YNANDR.E. 



FAM. 159. ORCHIDACEiE. 



Herbs terrestrial or epiijhytic or sometimes scandent (by means of 

 adventitious roots). Stems often thickened into one or a chain of 

 pseudobulbs, the latter usually terminating the internodes of a sym- 

 podium. Inflorescence lateral or terminal. Flowers from minute 

 to very large and shoAvy, solitary or usually spicate or racemose, 

 zygomorphic. Hypanthium adnate to the ovary and sometimes 

 shortly produced above it, it or its pedicel usually twisted. Perianth 

 superior, in two alternating Avhorls. Calyx of 3 sepals, 2 (superior, 

 lateral) sometimes united and forming at their base a sac or spur 

 {mentuni), one median (inferior). Petals 3, one (the lip) dissimilar 

 from the other 2 (merely referred to as '' j^etaW") and variously 

 developed, normally superior and turned towards the axis, but by 

 the torsion of the pedicel or hypanthium the orientation of the parts 

 of the flower is usually reversed, the median sepal becomes dorsal 

 and the lip anterior and turned toAvards the bract. Stamens and style 

 united into a column, the top of Avhich is usually shortly produced 

 (toAvards the lip) into a beak or process (rostellum). Anthers one or 

 2 only, sessile or subsessile on the long or short column, on the other 

 side of the floral axis to the lip, large, often opercular ; pollen cohering 



1150 



