298 TEXTBOOK OF BOTANY 



of some supplies sago. Palm oil comes from the fruits of 

 certain palms that grow in western Africa and eastern South 

 America. The betel nut is the fruit of another palm, and the 

 fruits of various species, such as the date and the coconut, are 

 edible. Copra, an important commercial product, is the 

 dried meat of the coconut, which is used in the manufacture 

 of coconut oil. Other products of various palms are wines, 

 soap, wax (from the surface of the stem), fibers of various 

 sorts (among them the coarse fibers from the leaf -stalks of 

 the raffia palm), and building materials. 



303. The Arum Family. The members of this family have 

 very simple flowers ; usually many flowers are borne in a 

 crowded spike which is partly surrounded and more or less 

 covered by a large bract. Well-known examples of this 

 floral arrangement are the Jack-in-the-pulpit (or " Indian 

 turnip ") and the calla lily. Others of the family are the 

 skunk cabbage and Acorus calamus, the " sweet flag," whose 

 fleshy creeping or underground stems are used in medicine 

 under the name of calamus. Not a few arums are cultivated 

 as house and greenhouse plants because of the beauty or the 

 oddity of their flower clusters and of the surrounding bracts. 

 Some members of the family have corms, like that of the Indian 

 turnip ; the corms of a number of species are eaten after being 

 cooked. 



304. The Lily Family. The flowers of this family are in 

 general similar to those of the familiar cultivated lilies ; the 

 sepals are usually showy and similar to the petals ; the flowers 

 are nearly always perfect and regular, with six stamens and a 

 single compound pistil ; the fruit is either a pod or a berry. 

 The family includes about 200 genera and about 2600 known 

 species. The true lilies are members of the genus Lilium. 

 Some of them, such as the tiger lily, the Easter lily, the gold- 

 banded lily, and the Turk's cap lily, have been cultivated for 

 centuries because of the beauty of their flowers. Other 

 members of the family cultivated for a similar reason are the 



