SUPPLEMENT. 
THE FAMILIES OF FLOWERING PLANTS. 
By Cuarzes Louis Poiiarp. 
CHAPTER XVIII. 
Order Ranales. 
The representatives of this order include many of our most familiar 
native plants, and some of them are among the first to appear in early 
spring. The order is a large one, comprising sixteen families, of which 
the Nymphaeaceae, Ranunculaceae, Berberidaceae, Magnoliaceae and 
Lauraceae are the most important. As a rule, the flowers have a corolla 
composed of distinct petals, but there are often cases of apetalous flow- 
ers, particularly in many Ranun- ‘ 
culaceae and in practically all the 
Lauraceae. The ovary is always 
superior and free from the calyx; 
it may be composed of one or 
many carpels. The stamens are 
numerous and hypogynous (in- 
serted beneath the ovary). 
Family Nymphaeaceae. Water- 
lily Family. Contains eight gen- 
era and about 30 species, all 
aquatic herbs, denizens of fresh 
water ponds and streams in tem- 
perate and tropical regions. They 
furnish by far the finest and most 
ornamental examples of cultivated 
aquatics. The plants produce sol- 
itary axillary flowers, whose struc- Fig. 84. The water-shield (Brasenia purpurea). 
ture differs remarkably among After Britton & Brown, Ill. Fl. North. U. S. 
the different genera. In the water-shields (Cabomba and Brasenia) the 
sepals and petals are 3 and the stamens 6; in the true water-lilies (Cas- 
talia), the lotuses (Nelumbo), and the spatter-dock (Nymphaea), the 
petals and stamens are numerous, and there is often a tendency for the 
stamens to become petaloid and to lose their function as pollen-bearers. 
