FAMILIES OF FLOWERING PLANTS. 17 
ORDER PANDANALES. 
Family Pandanaceae.—Screw-pine Family. Two genera, natives 
exclusively of the tropics of the Old World. The plants are dis- 
tinguished by their long and attenuate leaves of firm texture like those 
of a century plant; the margins and keel are usually spiny. The 
small flowers, quite destitute of any sort of perianth, are subtended 
by numerous bracts and are borne in dense clusters; they consist of 
many stamens and an ovary composed of a single carpel, succeeded 
by a large and fleshy fruit with a hard or woody external surface. 
Several species of Pundanus are common foliage plants in greenhouses, 
their long arched leaves and graceful habit rendering them particularly 
appropriate as center pieces in groups. In their native habitat the 
plants form impenetrable swamps, producing numerous interlacing 
aerial roots like those of the mangrove. 
Family Typhaceae.—Cat-tail Family. This contains but a single 
genus, Zyp/ha, which is always easily recognizable. The plants are 
stout and reed-like in habit, with long sword-shaped leaves and wand- 
like spikes which consist of in- 
numerable tiny flowers, reduced. 
to mere stamens and pistils,. 
with no perianth or floral en- 
velope, but with numerous in- 
termixed bristles. The upper 
portion of the spike, at flower- 
ing time, is lighter in color 4 
and less dense; this is com- ex 
posed entirely of stamens, which ’ 
soon fall away, leaving the pis- 
ils below to form a cotton-like 
mass in fruit. The flowers are 
thus said to be monoecious 
(Greek, dwelling in one house- 
hold), because the two sexes, 
although separate, occur on the 
SY 
4 : ‘i Fig. 13.—The proad-fruited pur-reed (Sparganium 
same plant. Typha contalns eurycarpinn) showing flowering branch and a detach- 
e 1 j i }). ed fruit enlarged. (After Britton and Brown, Il. 
abous 12 species, widely distrib ae a 
uted in temperate and tropical 
reigons, though always found in marshes. In many of our western states 
the spikes are used as ‘‘swabs’’ for the purpose of cleaning lamp chim- 
G 
