420 THE SWEEX-FIiAG FAMILY. 



is developed a small but regular perianth. The species, which are not 

 numerous, belong both to warm countries and to cold ones, the typical 

 species, or common sweet-flag, inhabiting Britain, and occurring near 

 Manchester. This curious and very interesting plant is a reed-like 

 aquatic, having a long, stout rhizome or root-stock, which creeps hori- 

 zontally in the mud, and sends up abundance of bright-green grassy 

 leaves, usually two to three feet high, and about half an inch broad. 

 The flower-stem is simple and erect, nearly as tall as the leaves, and 

 flattened at the sides. About half way up the handsome and remarkable 

 spadix is thrown out, — a body the size of the fore-finger, cylindrical, 

 tapering, of a light greenish-brown colour, slanting upwards, and 

 formed of innumerable hexandrous flowers, each with a free and sessile 

 ovary. The portion of stem above the spadix is in reality the spathe, 

 but so much lengthened and so much flattened as to have lost its 

 normal character. Every part of the plant is delightfully aromatic 

 when crushed or bruised, on which account the dried rhizomes are 

 kept in quantities in the druggists' shops. 



HABITATS AND LOCALITIES. 



Common Sweet-flag — {Acorns Oalamus.) 



Borders of ponds, growing in the water, common, but often without 

 flowers for many years together. In the ponds at the further side of 

 Hale Moss it blossoms abundantly every season. Plentiful at Eccles. 

 (J. S.) Plentiful at High Legh. Fl. June, July. 



E. B. V. 350 ; Baxter, v. 330. 



The gem of this family is that lovely flower the Calla Mthiopica, commonly 

 known in parlours and green-houses, of ■which it is a deservedly frequent orna- 

 ment in spring and early summer, under the name of the African or Ethiopian 

 lily. The stem, which is generally about two feet high, bears on its summit a 

 superb vase-like spathe of the purest white, and as large as a wine-glass, but 

 elegantly recurved from the base upwards, so as to disclose the point of the 

 golden spadix in the centre, the ensemble of the flower reminding us of an 

 alabaster lamp. The spadix is covered for its whole length with minute blossoms, 

 and often powdered over with their white pollen, so that it is quite a different 

 thing from the spadix of the Arum, with which it is not infrequently confounded. 

 There are usually five or six handsome leaves from the base of the stem, and on 

 stalks of about the same length. The Calla palustris, which will grow out of 

 doors, is seen occasionally, along with a singular plant called Pothos fatidus. 



