16 



BULLETIN 58, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



Tender white stolons or runners extend in various directions from 

 the rootstock. These runners are from a quarter to half an inch in 

 diameter. During the active growing season they give rise to new 

 plants, but in autumn they form peculiar hibernating bodies. These 

 consist of the short modified tip of the stolon, which bears several 

 (1-7) upwardly-directed buds on one side and a cluster (2-17) of thick 

 tuberlike roots on the other. The appearance of these (fig. 15) is 

 strongly suggestive of a miniature "hand" of bananas, and for this 

 reason the name banana water lily is proposed for this plant, which 



FIG. 13. Two types of leaves of the banana water lily. (The larger outline half natural size.) 



at present has no distinctive vernacular appellation. The name has 

 the additional merit of suggesting the yellow color of the tubers and 

 of the flowers. 



DISTRIBUTION. 



The banana water lily has been known chiefly as a native of Florida 

 and the plants of that State have long gone under the name Nym- 

 phsea flava. Plants identified from a few localities in Mexico and 

 from Brownsville, Tex., have been called N. mexicana. Dr. H. S. 

 Conard, who has monographed the genus, 1 unites these species, as he 



1 Publication No. 4, Carnegie Institution, 1905. 



