SUPPLEMENT. 
THE FAMILIES OF FLOWERING PLANTS. 
By Caries Louis Poiuarp. 
CHAPTER VI. 
Order’ Spathiflorae.  Spathe-bearing plants. 
Family Araceae.—Arum family. This well known group is rep- 
resented in the United States by a nainber of common plants, but its 
greatest development is in the tropies, both of the old and yew world. 
The family contains about 105 genera and 900 species; the vast ma- 
jority are coarse erect herbs, although some of the tropical forms are 
clinybing fleshy shrubs.» The root is usually either tuberous or cor- 
mose, * and contains an acrid poisonous principle; it usually abounds, 
however, in starch, and in certain genera yields an excellent quality of 
arrowroot when proper precaution is taken to extract the poisonous 
element. The leaves are basal, long-petioled, simple or compound, 
often of large size. 
The flowers are usually monoecious or dioecious, at most with 
mere traces of perianth, and are densely crowded on a fleshy axis or 
spike known technically as a spvd/r, Often the staminate flowers oc- 
cupy the upper and more elongated portion of the spadix, while the 
pistillate flowers are crowded in a globose mass below. This is well 
seen in the common cultivated calla lily. Overarching or completely 
enveloping the spadix is a large leaf-like bract known as a spathe, 
which is characteristic of this order of plants. In the skunk cabbage 
the spathe is dark purple and green, and forms an enwrapping hood or 
cowl. In the jack-in-the-pulpit the upper portion droops like a grace- 
ful canopy over the projecting spadix, while the lower portion is united 
*A corm is a fleshy, underground stem, resembling a bulb, but solid in struct- 
ure, i. e., not composed of scales. The Jack-in-the-pulpit affords a good illustration 
in the family under discussion. ‘ 
