298 CLASSIFICATION 



and for making umbrella-covering. The pith-like 

 tissue of the inside of the trunk of Sago-palm {Sagus) 

 of the Archipelago yields an abundant starchy matter 

 from which the Sago of commerce is manufactured. 

 Caryota urens or gol-sago is an ornamental tree of 

 our gardens, it grows wild in Assam, where it forms 

 a favourite food of elephants, it is popularly but 

 wrongly called the Sago-palm. 



The Order is mostly anemophilous. 



Nat. Order 2. Aracece. — Herbs with watery acrid 

 juice. Stem usually a tuber or corm or rhizome, 

 occasionally climbing by the help of aerial roots. 

 Leaves in climbing species alternate, in others radical. 

 Flowers i- or 2-sexual on a spadix more or less 

 completely enclosed in a green or coloured spathe. 

 Spadix usually monoecious and androgynous. Peri- 

 anth usually absent. Stamen usually i, sometimes 

 4 to 8. Carpels connate in a i- to 3-cened ovary. 

 Fruit of many small berries or drupes adnate to the 

 axis of the spadix. Seeds embedded in a mucila- 

 ginous pulp with copious albumen. 



The distribution is both tropical and temperate. 

 Common plants: kachu {Colocasia antiquorum) 

 (fig. 71), a common herb largely cultivated for ita 

 tuberous rhizome; the lower portion of the spadix is 

 occupied by naked female flowers (a) each consisting 

 of a i-celled ovary only; above the female flowers 

 are some abortive female flowers, then a number of 

 closely- packed naked male flowers (b) follow, each 

 consisting of a single 2-celled anther only; the axis 

 of the spadix is prolonged into an elongated appen- 

 dix (c) ; observe that the flowers are protogynous ; 

 man-kachu {Alocasia indtca) with its sub-erect thick 

 rhizome, for which the plant is largely cultivated; 

 gaja-pipul {Scindapsus officinalis) (fig. 267), a stout 



