ARACE^ 295 



large head or spike. Miiny tropical plants, and some of temperate 

 regions, many of them odd and grotesque. Genera about 100; species 

 about 1,000. Representative plants are skunk cabbage, jack-in-the- 

 pulpit, ealla, caladium, anthurium. Leaves often cetted-veined. 



A. Leaves eonipouiid 1. A risiema 



AA. Leaves simple. 



B. Spathe hooded or roofed at the top 2. Symvlocarpus 



BB. Spathe open or spreading at the top 'A. liichardia 



BBB. Spatlie open and spreading for its whole length 4. Calla 



BBBB. Spathe separated from spadix, appearing lateral ...5. Acorus 



1. AEIS^MA. Indian Turnip. Jack-in-the-Pulpit. 



Steiu arisinj; from a corn-like tuber, and bearing 1 or 2 compound leaves 

 with sheathing petioles: flowers naked and diclinous, the pistillate at the 

 base of the spadix and the staminate above them (or the plant dioecious), 

 the top of the spadix not flower-bearing: staminate flowers of a few sessile 

 anthers, and the pistillate with 1 sessile ovary, -which ripens into a red few- 

 seeded berry. Plants of spring or early summer, in rich woods. Tuber 

 very pungent, often used in domestic medicine. 



A. triph^llum, Torr. Jack-in-the-Pulpit. Common Indian Turnip. 

 Fig. 226. Leaves usually 2, each bearing 3 oblong-elliptic pointed leaflets : 

 spathe purple-striped, curving over the spadix. 



A Dracdntium, Schott. Dragon-root. Leaf usually \, with 7-11 narrow 

 olilong leaflets: spathe greenish, shorter than the spadix. 



2. SYMPLOCARPUS. Skunk Cabbage. 



Leaves and flowers arising from a strong rootstock, the Ivs. very large 

 and appearing after the spathes : fls. perfect, each with 4 sepals, 4 stamens 

 and single ovary which is sunk in the fleshy spadix: fruit made up of the 

 fleshy spadix with imbedded fleshy seeds: spathe pointed and arching, in- 

 closing the spadix. Common in wet meadows in the north- 

 eastern states. »x -^svi^v . 



S. foetidus, Salisb. Spathes purple, arising in the iSv~--^!;>jL-!!li 

 earliest spring: leaves very large (often 2 ft. long), simple 

 and entire, ovate, in tufts. The tufted leaves and fetid 

 odor give the plant the name of skunk cabbage. 



3. RICHARDIA. Calla Lily. 



Leaves several from each short rootstock, their peti- 

 oles sheathing the flower-scape: flowers naked and diclin- 

 ous, the stamens above and the 3-loculed ovaries below on ^27. Richardia 

 the spadix : spathe large and showy, the top flaring and the Africana. 

 base rolling about the spadix. Several species are cultivated, but the fol- 

 li)wing is the only common one. 



