232 AMERICAN MIDLAND NATURALIST 
from a normal aquatic plant earlier in the season. Internodes 
in this case 5-9 cm. long, the leaves are broader, subcordate, and 
varying from glabrous to pubescent as above described. Such 
plants were found in the shade of Cephalanthus occidentalis Linn. 
bordering the pond. 
Fertile Terrestrial Phase. Plant more or less erect 3-85. 
dm. high assurgent from a rootsrock creeping and rooting in 
mud or wet places, (the plant never blooms except where a good 
supply of water is present in the soil even in the terrestrial plants.) 
Interncdes 3—7.5 cm. long: nodes not noticeably swollen: foliage 
usually overtopping the spikes. Leaves 7.5-17 cm. long and 
2-4 cm. broad: pubescence as in the spring sterile terrestrial. 
Ochrea soft silky hirsute with more or less spreading hairs, and 
always entirely devoid of herbaceous margins. Young leaves 
silky shining with appressed hairs. Spikes 1-3 usually 2, one older, 
the larger about 5, cm. the second 2 cm. long, (when 3, all about 
the same length). Peduncle 3-4 cm. long slender and beset with 
rather long spreading fine gland-tipped hairs. Bracts ovate tri- 
angular ciliate, and densely covered with straight appressed 
brownish somewhat rough hairs. Calyx rose-red short campanulate: 
stamens versatile with rose-red anthers long-exserted: styles 
exserted, long, slender, forked below the middle with red globular 
stigmas, coetaneous with the stamens. Seed small, brownish, 
shining, thick, biconvex. Lowest flower not separate from the 
rest of the spike. ; 
Aquatic Phase. Plant floating in shallow water along the 
shores of ponds, gradually elongating into terrestrial plants as 
water recedes or dries up. Leaves with borderless ochrea only 
aquatic and smooth when and as long as water is present. 
Submerged parts all smooth and, when young, slimy also. Leaves 
shining dark green on both sides, elliptic-ovate or elliptic-oblong 
widest near the middle, obtuse, rounded or the upper subcordate 
at the base, acute or sometimes somewhat obtuse at the apex, 
5-11.5 cm. long and 1-4 cm. wide, the average leaf about 3x9 
cm. Petiole slender 1-4 cm. long: internodes 2-4 cm. long where 
the leaves persist, but lengthening out considerably when old. 
The aquatic phase seems to be merely vestigial, or transitional 
to the blooming terrestrial. Plants on high dry land seldom flower 
in the terrestrial phase, and the aquatic seems to serve only the 
purpose of starting the growth early in the season. 
