THE WATER-PLANTAIN FAMILY. 23 



THE WATER PLANTAIN FAMILY. 



Alis7nacecE. 



Belonging to this group arc mostly tuater plants with fibrous roots 

 and scape-like, smooth stems. 7 heir lo?ig petioled leaves arise from the 

 base where they are sheathed about the scape. The flowers are perfect, 

 monoecious or dioecious, generally S7nall a fid produced in racemes or pan- 

 icles. 



WATER PLANTAIN. 



Alisma plant ago-aqudtica. 



FAMILY COLOUR ODOUR RANGE TIME OF BLOOM 



Water-Plantain. Rose-ivhite or white. Scentiess. General. Jutte-Septeviber. 



Flowers: small ; numerous ; growing loosely in a whorled panicle on a scape 

 from six inches to two and a half feet high, and having small, linear bracts at the 

 bases of their pedicels. Calyx: with three persistent sepals. Corolla : with three 

 deciduous petals. Stamens: six. /'/.f///j ; numerous, in a single whorl. Leaves: 

 long, oval, abruptly pointed at the apex and narrowed, or cordate at the base ; en- 

 tire ; thin. 



Growing in mud or shallow water, this tall and rather unattractive plant 

 is a familiar sight. Its leaves closely resemble those of the common door- 

 yard plantain, which fact, in connection with its loose spray of tiny flushed 

 flowers, makes it readily recognised. The rhizomes have been collected 

 and eaten as articles of food by a number of tribes of North American 

 Indians. 



LANCE-LEAVED 5AGITTARIA. {Plate IX.) 



Sagittaria lancifblia. 



Flo7vers: both staminate and pistillate ones growing in whorls of three, or the 

 top ones scattered, and borne on smooth, erect scapes, at times three feet high, the 

 staminate flowers being uppermost. Pedicels: slender, smooth, with ovate bracts 

 at their bases. Calyx: with three ovate, persistent sepals. Corolla: with three 

 white, rounded and early falling petals. Stamens : numerous on the convex re- 

 ceptacle ; filaments, pubescent, with a cobweb-like substance. Pistils: numerous. 

 Achenes : forming a globose head. Leaves : from the base, lanceolate, or oblong- 

 lanceolate ; ])ointed at both ends and tapering at the base into a jietiole sometimes 

 two and a half or three feet high; parallel-veined, entire, glabrous, 



