113 WAYSIDE AND WOODLAND BLOSSOMS. 



Arrowhead (Sagittaria sagittifolia). 



One of the most striking among the many forms of leaves 

 that go to make up the vegetation of the sluggish stream or the 

 canal is the aptly-named plant here figured. 



It is a perennial, the leaves are radical, and from the base of 

 the plant runners are thrown out, each ultimately terminating 

 in a globose tuber. The leaves are typical of what botanists 

 describe as a " sagittate " leaf, and their long stalks are three- 

 edged. The stem is leafless, but bears a number of flowers in 

 series of threes. These flowers are of two kinds, staminate 

 and pistillate, and because, like those of Poterium, they are 

 borne upon the same plant, botanists describe Sagittaria as 

 monoecious, just as they describe the Hop as dioecious, because 

 its two sexes are on different plants. There are three sepals, 

 and three large white petals with purplish spots at their base. 

 The lower flowers contain carpels only, which are many in 

 number, and which develop into a compact head of nut-like 

 fruits. The stalks of these pistillate flowers are shorter than 

 those of the staminate flowers above them, which contain 

 purple anthers. It flowers from July to September, and is 

 frequent in England as far north as Cumberland, as an 

 indigenous plant ; in Scotland it has become naturalized, and 

 in Ireland it is of local occurrence. It is the only British 

 species. 



The name is from the Latin sagitta, an arrow. 



