304 MARANTACEAE (ARROWROOT FAMILY) 



MARANTACEAE (ARROWROOT FAMILY) 



Herbs with distichous pinnately veined commonly asymmetrical leaves, irregu- 

 lar perfect flowers, and strongly reduced asymmetrical androecium, only one half 

 of one anther polleniferous, the other half as well as the anthers of the remain- 

 ing stamens sterile and petaloid. Ovary inferior ; cells 3 or by abortion fewer, 

 1-ovuled. Style single, more or less unilateral or declined. Seeds arillate ; 

 embryo curved in copious albumen. 



1. THALIA L. 



Erect scapose aquatic herbs with ovate-lanceolate long-petioled leaves, col- 

 ored caducous bracts, and open panicles of showy usually purple flowers. 

 Sepals 3, equal or nearly so, usually much shorter than the 3 nearly or quite 

 distinct petals. Staminodia somewhat connate, petaloid, one of them enlarged, 

 deflexed and lip-like. (Named for Johann Thai, a German physician and nat- 

 uralist who died in 1583.) 



1. T. dealbata Roscoe. White-powdery; scapes 1-2 in. high; leaf -blades 

 ovate-lanceolate, acute at apex, rounded or subcordate at base ; corolla and 

 bracts pale blue, the staminodia purple or violet. Marshes, Mo. to S. C. and 

 Tex. 



BURMANNlACEAE (BURMANNIA FAMILY) 



Small annual herbs, often with minute and scale-like leaves, or those at the 

 root grass-like; the flowers perfect, with a Q-cleft corolla-like perianth, the tube 

 of which adheres to the l-celled or S-celled ovary ; stamens 3 and distinct, oppo- 

 site the inner divisions of the perianth capsule many-seeded, the seeds very 

 minute. A small, chiefly tropical family. 



1. BURMANNIA L. 



Ovary 3-celled, with the thick placentae in the axis. Filaments 3, very short. 

 Style slender ; stigma capitate-3-lobed. Capsule often 3-winged. (Named for 

 J. Burmann, an early Dutch botanist.) 



1. B. biflbra L. Slender (7-12 cm. high), 1-several-flowered ; perianth 

 (5 mm. long) bright blue, 3-winged. Peaty bogs, Va. to Fla. and La. 



ORCHIDACEAE (ORCHIS FAMILY) 

 . REVISED BY OAKES AMES 



Herbs, distinguished by perfect zygomorphic gynandrous flowers, with 6-merous 

 (sometimes apparently 5-merous) perianth adnate to the l-celled ovary, with 

 innumerable ovules on 3 parietal placentae, and with either 1 or 2 fertile stamens, 

 the pollen cohering in masses. Perianth usually of 6 divisions ; the 3 outer 

 (sepals) mostly of the same texture as the 3 inner (petals). Of the inner 

 series, one, termed the lip, differs from the rest in shape, and is sometimes 

 prolonged at the base into a spur. The lip is really the posterior petal, but 

 by a twist of the pedicel or ovary of half a turn it is more commonly directed 

 downward and becomes apparently anterior. At the base of the lip, in the 

 axis of the flower, is the column, composed of a single fertile stamen, or, in 



