PLATE XII. 



1. CALLA ^ETHIOPICA, 



^ETHIOPIAN CALLA. 



THIS genus contains a plant of the herbaceous flowery perennial 

 green-house kind. Ethiopian Arum. 



It belongs to the class and order Gynandria Polyandria, and ranks 

 in the natural order of Pipcrita. 



The characters are: that the calyx is a one-leafed spathe, ovate- 

 cordate acuminate, coloured at top, very large spreading, permanent: 

 the spadix finger-shaped, quite single, erect, covered with fructifica- 

 tions: there is no corolla: the stamina consist of some filaments 

 intermixed with the germs the length of the pistils, permanent, com- 

 pressed, truncate: the anthers are simple, truncate, and sessile: the 

 pistillum to each is a roundish obtuse germ: the st3'le simple, very 

 short: the stigma acute: the pericarpium contains as many berries 

 as there are pistils, four-cornered, globular, pulpy, and one-celled 

 (several-celled): the seeds numerous (six to twelve,) solitary, oblong, 

 cylindric, and obtuse at both caids. 



The species cultivated for ornament is C. JEthiopica, ./Ethiopian 

 Arum, or Sweet Calla. 



It has thick, fleshy, tuberous roots, which are covered with a 

 thin brown skin, and strike down many strong fleshy fibres into the 

 ground. The leaves arise in clusters, having foot-stalks more than a 

 foot long, which are green and succulent: the leaves are eight or nine 

 inches in length, and of a shining green, ending in a sharp point, 

 which turns backward: between the leaves comes out the scape, 

 which is thick, smooth, of the same colour as the leaves, rising above 

 them, and terminated by a single flower shaped like those of the 



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