194- LETTER XLV. 



The common spotted Arum (Arum maculatum), will 

 give you a sufficiently correct idea of the structure of 

 the Arum Tribe. It has a smooth, erect, oblong 

 spathe {fig. 1.), green outside, whitish inside, and 

 unrolling to expose the point of the spadix {fig. 1. a.), 

 which childi'en call the lady riding in her coach. If 

 you extract the spadix, you will find it a long, soft, 

 fleshy branch, the upper part of which is quite naked, 

 and the lower part covered with naked flowers. At 

 the bottom (fig. 2. h.) stand several tiers of round 

 ovaries ; above them are placed two or three rows of 

 abortive ovaries, in the form of homed, pear-shaped 

 bodies (fig. 2. c.) ; then appears a crowd of stamens 

 (fig. 2. f/.) ; and above those is again collected a small 

 cluster of abortive ovaries (fig. 2. e.). The ovaries 

 are so many naked fertile flowers, the stamens are 

 each a naked sterile flower ; and the inflorescence is, 

 in strict technical language, a crowded monoecious 

 spike, wrapped up in a large leafy bract. 



The ovary is puckered and hollowed out at the 

 apex, for a stigma (fig. 3.), and contains two o^Tiles 

 growing from the side of a single cell (fig. 4.). The 

 stamen has a short thick filament, with two romid 

 lobes, placed obliquelv on its end, for an anther 

 (fig. 5.). ^ 



The fruit ripens in the form of a spike of orange- 

 coloured, romidish berries (fig. 6.), each of which 

 contains a single seed (fig. 7.)> enclosing a monocoty- 

 ledonous embryo (fig. 8.), surrounded by farinaceous 

 albumen. On one side of the embryo is a narrow 

 slit (fig. 8. «.), at the bottom of which lies the minute 



