164 



THE ARUM ARISARUM. 



Our arum, which we have taken as a type of the family of 

 the Aroidaceae, is called maculatum, or " spotted," in allusion 

 to the white and violet spots with which its leaves are be- 

 sprinkled. 



Another, and not less interesting species, is the Arum art- 

 sarum. (See Fig. 34, a.) It loves' to display its exquisite 



leafage on the rocks border- 

 b ing the "sea-marge," and is 

 found in profusion along 

 almost the entire littoral of 

 the Mediterranean. It is a 

 precocious flower making 

 its appearance about the end 

 of December, and flourishing 

 until the beginning of Spring. 

 The spathe, which in the 

 Arum maculatum has all the aspect of an etiolated leaf, 

 assumes, in the Arum arisarum, the tints of a corolla, is of 

 a beautiful warm red violet, streaked with white. The fleshy 

 axis, which ought rather to be called gynandrous (both male 

 and female) than a spadix, is of a red colour ; naked in its 

 upper portion, which terminates with a kind of apple. It 

 would remind a drummer-boy of the formidable staff carried 

 by his drum-major (see Fig. 34, b.) ; the stamens, reduced to 

 the condition of bilobed anthers, are mounted around the 

 central part; and the ovaries, less numerous than the stamens, 

 occupy the base of the axis. Each monocular ovary is 

 crowned by a sessile stigma, and each lobe contains a great 



FIG. 34. The Arum arisarum. 



