A I isv m i.-.] 



ALISMA< I..!. 





■ . LXV. A.LISMAC1 



Allunacea, i;. I. B. in part 



.. dlx. ; Mi 



. 



Diagnosis. — AUtmal Bndogau with S-peta 



\r, and << 



kting or swamp plants, very rarely annual, usually having a en 

 uial rhizome. Flowers in umbels, racemes or panii 

 Leaves either narrow and strap-shaped, or expanded 

 into a broad blade, always however with the veins 

 parallel. Sepals 3, herbaceous. Petals 3, petaloid. 

 ■ as definite or indefinite ; anthers turned 

 inwards. Ovaries superior, several, 1-ceUed ; ovules 

 erect or ascending, Bolitary, or 2 attached to the 

 Buture at :t distance from each other, anatropal or 

 campylotropal. Styles and stigmas the same number 

 as me ovaries. Bruit dry, 1- or 2-seeded. 

 without albumen, hooked ; embryo shaped 

 like a horse-shoe, undivided, with th< Bame 

 direction as the a i d. 



This Order is t" Bndogens what Crow- 

 foots are t<> Polypetalous Exogens, and is 

 in like manner recognised by ii> disunited 

 carpels and hypogynous Btamens. Such 

 plants as Ranunculus parnassifolius 

 hardly distinguishable from Alismads bj 

 external characters. Arrow-grasses are - 



known by their imperfect floral enveloj ' xu 



:m<l straight embryo having a lateral ■-lit for the emission of the plumule. 

 plants belonging to Alismads, Hydrocharads, Naiads, Arrow-gi 

 mads, have all a disproportionately large radicle, whence their embryos wa 

 by the late I,, c. Richard, macropodal. The truly diclinous t! 

 constitute a great and unusual exception to the otherwise hermaphrodite struct . 



this • >i'ler. 



Chiefly natives of the northern parts of the world. Se\, ral S 

 oniums inhabit the tropics, the former those "i both hemisphi r 



Many have a fleshy rhizome, which i- eatable : Buch are Uisn :. an I ? 

 Bpecies of the latter, S. sinensis, i> cultivated tor food in China ; it- hi 

 Alisma Plantago and Sagittaria aagittifolia are among the plants fo ii*!. j • 

 in hydrophobia : the rhizome of the former, deprived of acridit) bj 

 the Kalmucks. Various Brazilian Sagittarias astring 



juice is even employed in the preparation of ink. — Martiua, '. •■ 



GENER \ 



A li -iii.t . .' 



l-'.ili ■ 



■ ■■!. 



Ulll. Just. 



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\ I Mill. us. GEN. 3. 



POSl I .<>N. 



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.r. 



CXLI. L. Flower of Uisma nnunculoidas seen in fivut j 



tieii of the o\ary ; 4. I Bection of B Seed 



urn* frotn »>•<• tmt . X » MS- 



