458 ARUM FAMILY. 



4-6, or 0. Fruit generally a berry. A large family in the 

 tropics, and comprising many plants of choice collections, cul- 

 tivated for the foliage, or for the showy, so-called " flowers," 

 which are really colored spathes. 



* Plants with expanded leaf blade (never linear), and with spreading nerves or veins. 



+- Spadix surrounded by a conspicuous, generally colored, spathe. 



++ Leaves (in ours) compound. 



1. ARISJEMA. Leaves only one or two, with stalks sheathing the simple stem, which 



rises from a fleshy corm, and terminates in a long spadix bearing nude flowers only 

 at its base, where it is enveloped by the convolute lower part of the greenish or pur- 

 plish spathe. Sterile flowers above the fertile, each of a few sessile anthers ; the 

 fertile each a 1-celled 5-6-ovuled ovary, in fruit becoming a scarlet berry ; commonly 

 dioecious, the stamens being abortive in one plant, the pistils abortive in the other. 



H- -n- Leaves simple. 



= Foliage of ordinary size, the leaves arrow shaped or heart-shaped, or sometimes 

 nearly lanceolate. 



1 Spathe convolute (its margins overlapping below) about the spadix. 



2. ARUM. Leaves hastate or sagittate, with the scape from a thick rhizome. Spathe 



convolute below, large, the blade ovate or ovate-lanceolate, mostly dark-colored, 

 spotted or green. Spadix shorter than the spathe, sessile. Flowers without enve- 

 lopes, monoecious, the staminate above. Ovary oblong and obtuse, 1-celled, 6-00- 

 seeded. Berry obovoid, many-seeded. 



8. PELTANDRA. Leaves arrow-shaped ; these and the scape from a tufted fibrous root. 

 Spathe convolute to the pointed apex, green, wavy-margined. Spadix long and 

 tapering, covered completely with nude flowers, i.e. above with naked shield-shaped 

 anthers each of 5 or 6 cells, opening by a hole at the top, below with 1-celled ovaries 

 bearing several erect ovules, in fruit a 1-3-seeded fleshy bag. Seeds obovate, sur 

 rounded by a tenacious jelly. 



4. RICHARDIA. Leaves arrow-shaped ; these and the long scape from a short tuberous 



rootstock. Spathe broad, spreading above, convolute at base around the slender 

 cylindrical spadix, which is densely covered above with yellow anthers, below with 

 ovaries, each incompletely 3-celled, and containing several hanging ovules. Flowers 

 with no envelopes. 



5 B Spathe shell-form or hooded, inclosing the globiilar spadix, in which the flowers are 

 as it were nearly immersed. 



5. SYMPLOCARPUS. Leaves ovate, very large and veiny, short-petioled, appearing 



much later than the flowers from a fibrous-rooted conn or short rootstock. Spathe 

 ovate, incurved, thick, barely raised out of the ground. Each flower has 4 hooded 

 sepals, 4 stamens with 2-celled anthers turned outwards, and a 1-celled, 1-ovuled 

 ovary tipped with a short awl-shaped style ; the fruit is the enlarged spongy spadix 

 under the rough surface of which are imbedded large fleshy seeds. 



1 1 fl Spathe open and spreading (not rolling around the spadix). 



6. CALLA. Leaves heart-shaped, on long petioles ; these and the peduncles from a creep- 



ing rootstock. Spathe open, the upper face bright white, spreading widely at the 

 base of the oblong spadix, which is wholly covered with the nude flowers ; the lower 

 ones perfect, having 6 stamens around a 1-celled ovary ; the upper often of stamens 

 only. Berries red, containing a few oblong seeds, surrounded with jelly. 



7. ANTHURIUM. Leaves various. Plant sometimes with a distinct stem or trunk (even 



climbing in some species). Flowers all perfect and fertile, and with a 4-parted 

 perianth, the spadix generally elongated and prominent. Spathe ovate to lanceolate, 

 widely spreading or reflex a ,d, thickish and mostly of a waxy texture. Ovary 2-celled, 

 with 1-2 ovules in each cell, but usually only 1 seed in each fruit. 



