212 XL SARRACENIACE^E. 



of haemorrhage ; it is also used by nurses to reduce the secretion of milk, and its rootstock is 

 eaten in Russia and Finland. The same is the case with the rootstock and seeds of Euryale ferox, 

 a native of India, and cultivated in China under the name of Kiteou. The Marnru, dedicated to the 

 Queen of England ( Victoria regui), is the most beautiful of the NympJueacca ; it inhabits the tranquil 

 waters of the lagunes formed by the overflow of the large rivers of South America. Its leaves are floating 

 and peltate, their circular blade is 12-15 feet in girth, and its edge 2^-6 inches high; the upper surface 

 is of a brilliant dark green, the under of a red brown, furnished with large reticulated prominent 

 cellular ribs, full of air, and bristling, like the petiole and peduncle, with elastic prickles. The flowers, 

 which rise a few inches above the water, are more than 30 inches in circumference : at first of a pure white, 

 in twenty-four hours they successively pass through pale pink to bright red ; they exhale an agreeable scent 

 during the first day of their blossoming ; at the end of the third day the flower withers and sinks into 

 the water to ripen its seeds. The fruit, which is inferior, attains when ripe the size of a large depressed 

 apple, covered with prickles. The seeds, which are known in the province of Corrientes as water maize, 

 are rich in starch, and are roasted by the natives, who consider them excellent food. Brnsenia pcltata is 

 used in North A merica as a mild astringent. Nektmbium speciusum was the Lotus of the Egyptians ; its leaves, 

 peltate and saucer-shaped, are represented on their monuments and the statues of their gods; its pink 

 flowers resemble enormous tulips, and its fruit-bearing peduncles served as a model for the columns of 

 their buildings. This species grows in several parts of Asia, as far as the mouths of the Volga, but is 

 no longer met with in Egypt ; its seeds, formerly called Egyptian beans, still serve as food to the Indians 

 and Chinese, who also use its petals as an astringent. N. lutetim inhabits the large rivers of Louisiana 

 and Carolina. 



XI. SARRACENIACEJZ, Endlicher. 



Perennial HERBS, inhabiting the turfy spongy bogs of North America and Guiana. 

 ROOT fibrous. LEAVES all radical, with a tubular or amphora-shaped petiole ; blade 

 small, rounded, usually lying on the orifice of the petiole. SCAPES naked, or fur- 

 nished with a few bracts, 1 -flowered (Sarracenia, Darlingtonia), or terminated by a 

 few-flowered raceme (Heliamphora). FLOWERS large, nodding. SEPALS 4-5, free, 

 very much imbricated at the base, sub-petaloid, persistent. PETALS 5, free, hypo- 

 gynous, imbricate, deciduous, rarely (Heliamphord). STAMENS oo, hypogynous, free ; 

 filaments filiform ; anthers 2-celled, versatile, opening by 2 longitudinal slits. OVARY 

 free, 3-5-celled, placentas prominent at the inner angle of the cells ; style terminal, 

 short, sometimes dilated at the top, as a 5-angled or -lobed petaloid parasol with 

 5 radiating nerves (Sarracenia), or 5-fid, lobes narrow, spreading, reflexed, stig- 

 matiferous (Darlingtonia), or obtuse and terminated by an obscurely 3-lobed stigma 

 (Heliamphora) ; ovules numerous, many-seriate, sub-horizontal, anatropous, raphe 

 lateral. CAPSULE 3-5-celled, loculicidally 3-5-valved. SEEDS oo, 'small; testa 

 crustaceous, sometimes loosely reticulate (Darlingtonia), or membranous and winged 

 (Heliamphora) ; albumen copious, fleshy, EMBRYO minute, near the hilum. 



GENERA. 

 Sarracenia. Darlingtonia. Heliampbora. 



This little family approaches Papaveraccts in hypopetalism, polyandry, numerous ovules, cnpsular 

 fruit, fleshy copious albumen, and minute basilar embryo ; but Papaveraceee differ much in habit, proper 

 juice, caducous dimerous calyx, and one-celled ovary with parietal placentation. Sarraceniacea are con- 

 nected with Nymphccncea by the same characters, and also by the always radical leaves, one- flowered 



