) 



CALLITRICHACE^. (WATEK-STARWOUTS.) 427 



Order 93. SAURURACE^E. (Lizard's-tail Family.) 



Herbs, with Jointed stems, alternate entire leaves, and perfect flowers in 

 spikes, entirely destitute of any floral envelopes, and loilh 3-5 more or less 

 separate or united ovaries. — Ovules ihw, ortliotropous. Embryo heart- 

 shaped, minute, contained in a little sac at the apex of the albumen. — An 

 offshoot of the (tropical) Pe[)per Family, and represented only by 



1. SAURURUS, L. Lizard's-tail. 



Stamens mostly 6 or 7, hypogynous, with distinct filaments. Fruit somewhat 

 fleshy, wrinkled, of 3-4 pistils united at the base. Stigmas recurved. Seeds 

 usually solitary, ascending. — Perennial marsh herbs, with heart-shaped con- 

 vergiug-ribbed petioled leaves, without distinct stipules; flowers (each with a 

 small bract) crowded in a slender wand-like and naked peduncled terminal 

 spike or raceme (its appearance giving rise to the name, from (raiipos, a lizard 

 and ovpti, tail). Bract adnate to or borne on the pedicel. 

 vr'Vl. S. c6rilUUS, L. Flowers white, in a dense spike nodding at the end ; 

 brae 

 Aun 



^*^ ^ bract lanceolate ; filaments long and capillary. — Swamps : common. June - 



Order 94. CERATOPHYELACEiE. (Horxwort Family.) 



Aquatic herhs, with xoliorled finely dissected leaves, and minute axillary 

 and sessile monoecious flowers tcithout floral envelopes, but with an 8-12- 

 clefl involucre in place of a calyx, the fertile a simple 1-celled ovary, with a 

 suspended orthotropous ovule : seed filled by a highly developed embryo with 4 

 cotyledons! and a cotispicuous plumule. — Consists only of the genus 



1. CERATOPHYLLUM, L. Hornavort. 



Sterile flowers of 12-24 stamens, with large sessile anthers. Fruit an ache- 

 nium, beaked with the slender persistent style. — Herbs growing under water, 

 in ponds or slow-flowing streams : the sessile leaves cut into thrice-forked thread- 

 like rigid divisions (whence the name from Kcpas, a horn, and (jivWov, lenf). 



1. C. demersum, L. — Var. commune has a smooth marginless fruit 

 beaked with a long persistent style, and with a short spine or tubercle at the 

 base on each side. — Var. echinXtum (C. echinatum. Gray) has the fruit 

 mostly larger (3" long), rough-pimpled on the sides, the narrowly wing-ed mar- 

 gin spiny-toothed. — Slow streams and ponds : common, but rarely seen in fruit. 

 Probably there is only one sjjccics. (Fu.) 



Order 95. CAEEITRICIIACEJE. (Water-Starworts.) 



Small annuals or perennials, mostly aquatics, with opposite entire leaves 

 and axillary monoecious flowers ivithoul any proper floral envelopes, and with 

 a i-lobed and A-celled i-sceded fruit ; — consisting only of the genus Calll- 

 triche (regarded by many botanists, perhaps with good reason, as repre- 



