32 THE ARUM FAMILY. 



THE ARUM FAMILY. 



A racec€. 



Herbs 7vJiich usually contain an aa-iJ, watery juice and bear their 

 flowers closely on a spadix usually wrapped about by a spatlie. Spadix 

 densely floivered ; the flowers cither perfect, monoecious or dioecious. When 

 both sorts of flowers occur in the same spike the pistillate ones are 

 arranged belozv the staminate ones. The long pet ioled leaves, either simple 

 or compound, are both netted and parallel veified., Rootstock: a corm or 

 tuber. 



" I don't keer nuthin' 'bout yarbs," said an old mountaineer, " but when I 

 sees one, I kin tell whar it be." Perhaps we should all be so fortunate if 

 the various plant families helped us along as well as do the arums. The 

 golden-club, Orontium aquaticum^ is looked upon quite as an exception to 

 the family custom as it has no screen for its domesticity, that is, excepting 

 in very early days when a spathe does enclose and protect from harm the 

 young spadix. Soon, however, it falls away, or remains as a sheathing bract- 

 at the base. At maturity traces of it are seldom seen. The golden club, 

 however, belongs to a monotypic genus, and little doubt as to its identity 

 can enter the mind when its simple spadix is seen, crowded with small 

 golden flowers, and its oblong, pointed leaves, which either float on the water, 

 or occasionally protrude. It occurs mostly near the coast from Louisiana 

 and Florida to Massachusetts, ascending as high as 2,200 feet in the moun- 

 tains of West North Carolina. 



The skunk cabbage, Spathyhna fcetida, also a celebrated individual, is 

 much lauded, in spite of its unattractiveness, for being one of the earliest 

 spring bloomers. Instead, however, of regarding it as leader of the gay 

 spring pageant, we might with justice look upon it as a winter visitor, for it 

 usually pushes itself through the soil in February, Then down in the 

 swamps its great mottled, purplish brown and yellow cowl is well known. 

 At an early day insects find it out, and that their coming is expected is 

 proved by the webs which spiders weave within the hoods. It is not un- 

 usual to tear them asunder when opening the spathes. Later than the 

 flowers the leaves appear ; sometimes they reach three feet in length, and 

 grow in great tufted crowns. From a distance they appear to have carpeted 

 the marshy ground with apple -green. 



Peltatidra sagittcefblia, white arrow-arum, is an inhabitant of wet places 

 and occurs from Florida to Southern Virginia. Its white spathe, three or 

 four inches long, is open or expanded towards the summit where it tapers 



