OrpER CXXIX. HYDROCHARIDES. 
(By C. H. Wriaur.) 
Flowers usually unisexual. Perianth regular, 2 rarely) 1-seriate, 
3-merous, the inner whorl petaloid, white or yellow. Stamens 3-12 
inserted on the base of the perianth, free or slightly united at the 
and ; anthers 2-celled, usually introrse; staminodes sometimes 
present. Ovary inferior, 1-celled with 3- 6 parietal placentas, or 
6- d-celle d ; style short or very long ; stigmas 3 on the 1-celled or 6' 
on the several-celled ovaries, usually bifid ; ovules many or few 
orthotropous or anatropous. Fruit various, * often fleshy and inde- 
hiscent. Seeds aeisiictie embryo straig 
Floating or submerged, os perennial, herbs ; es either all radical, or 
gad ave weet ie osite or whorled, narrow in the South African genus ; 
ers W bud enclosed eed a membranous or - rbaceous sessile or stalked 
sath the ethers ual numerous, the female solitary 
Dist Gen only 1 in South Africa; species about 50, extending 
nde ‘the thocical col temper, Re regions of both hemispheres. 
I. LAGAROSIPHON, Harv. 
Flowers paste Male : spathes ovate, bifid at the apex, many- 
flowered ; periant a 3 — lobes slightly larger than the 
inner; stamens ; minodes 2-3. Female: s thes ovate or 
oblong, 1-flowered ; oon nth-tube long, very slender; limb of 6 
lobes, the 3 outer slightly sae style as long as the perianth-tube ; 
stigmas 3, short, sometimes forked : ovules few or many, ortho- 
tropous. 
Aquatic herbs with long more or less branched stems, leafy throughout ; leav 
alternate, subopposite or whorled, linear or linear- lanceolate ; spathes ccmasys 
soli =. 
Species about 12, chiefly in Tropical Africa, 1 in the Mascarene 
Inlands ai 1 in India. 
Lb. museoides spon in Hook. Journ. Bot. iv. 1842, 230, t. 2 
ft. 
very minutely serrulate, glabrous, l-nerved, about 9 lin. long, 4 es 
wide; spathe compressed, 2-lobed, serrulate all round the margin ; 
male flower : perianth-lobes obovate, the outer slightly larger i 
the inner; filaments subulate; anthers dorsifixed, sagit te, 
mucronate ; staminodes 3, filiform, scabrous, twice as long as the 
stamens ; female flower : periant th-tube very slender, 1} in. long ; 
limb 1} lin. in diam. ; ; lobes obovate, the outer the larger ; meendee 
VOL. V.—SECT. III, 
