PROPAGATION OF WILD-DUCK FOODS. 39 



Tender white stolons or runners extend in various directions from 

 the rootstock. These runners are from a quarter to half an inch in 

 diameter. During the active growing season they give rise to new 

 plants, but in autumn they form peculiar hibernating bodies. These 

 consist of the short modified tip of the stolon, which bears several 

 (1 to 7) upwardly directed buds on one side and a cluster (2 to 17) 

 of thick tuberlike roots on the other. The appearance of these (fig. 

 34) is strongly suggestive of a miniature " hand " of bananas, and for 

 this reason the name banana waterlily has been proposed for this 

 plant, which has no distinctive vernacular appellation. The name 

 has the additional merit of suggesting the yellow color of the tubers 

 and of the flowers. 



B236M 



Fig. 34. — Hibernating bodies of banana waterlily. (Two-thirds natural size.) 



DISTRIBUTION. 



The banana waterlily has been known chiefly as a native of Flor- 

 ida, and the plants of that State have long gone under the name 

 Castalia flava. Plants identified from a few localities in Mexico' 

 and from Brownsville, Tex., have been called C. mexicana. Dr. H. 

 S. Conard, who has monographed the genus, 1 unites these species, 

 as he is fully justified in doing, on the basis of their possession in 

 common of characters unique among waterlilies. The new records 

 of the plant from Galveston, Tex., and Avery Island, La., go far 

 toward bridging the previous apparent gap in distribution of the 

 plant and toward corroborating Dr. Conard's views. The accom- 

 panying map (fig. 35) shows the probable natural range of the 

 species along the Gulf coast and in Mexico. 



1 Publication No. 4, Carnegie Institution, 1905. 



