432 NAIADACEiE. (PONDWEED FAMILY.) 



3. ZOSTERA. Pistils aad anthers alternately eessile in 2 rows on one side of a linear spodix 



enclosed in a leaf. Stigmas 2. 



* * Flowers perfect. 



4. RUPPIA Flowers naked on a spadix : each of 4 large anther-cells, and 4 OTaxies which, 



are raised on long stalks in fniit. 

 6. FOTAMOGETON. Flowers and fruit spiked. Sepals, stamens, and sessile oTaries each 4. 



1. NAIAS, L. Naiad. 



Flowers dicecious (or sometimes monoecious), axillary, solitary and sessile ; 

 the sterile consisting of a single stamen enclosed in a little membranous spathe : 

 anther at first nearly sessile, the filament at length elongated. Fertile flowers 

 consisting of a single ovary tapering into a short style : stigmas 2-4, awl- 

 shaped : ovule erect, anatropous. Fruit a little seed-like nutlet, enclosed in a 

 loose and separable membranous epicarp. Embryo straight, the radicular end 

 downwards. — Slender branching herbs, growing entirely under water, with 

 opposite linear leaves, somewhat crowded into whorls, sessile and dilated at the 

 base. Flowers very small, solitary, but often clustered with the branch-leaves 

 in the axils. (Naiaj, water-nymph ; an ill-chosen name for these insignificant 

 water-weeds; from their place of growth.) 



1 . N. fiexilis, Rostk. Leaves membranaceous, spreading, very narrowly 

 linear, entire, or sparingly very minutely denticulate (under a lens) ; stigmas 

 usually 3-4. (N. Canad6nsis, Mcfa. Caulinia flexilis, Willd.) — Ponds and 

 slow streams ; common. July -Sept. (Eu.) 



N. MiNOE ( CauUnia frdgilis, TFi'M.), with the more rigid and recurved frag- 

 ile leaves rather strongly toothed, is not identified in this country. 



2. ZANNICHEIililA, Micheli. Hokned Pond weed. 



Flowers moncecious, sessile, naked, usually both kinds from the same axil : 

 the sterile consisting of a single stamen, with a slender filament bearing a 2 - 4- 

 celled anther; the fertile of 2-5 (usually 4) sessile pistils in the same cup- 

 shaped involucre, forming obliquely oblong nutlets in fruit, beaked with a short 

 style, which is tipped by an obliquely disk-shaped or somewhat 2-lobed stigma. 

 Seed orthotropous, suspended, straight. Cotyledon taper, beiit and coiled up. 

 — Slender brauching lierbs, gi-owing under water, with very slender stems, op- 

 posite or alternate long and linear thread-form entire leaves, and sheathing 

 membranous stipules. (Named in honor of Zannichdli, a Venetian botanist.) 



1. SE. palAstriS, L. Style at least half as long as the frait, which is flat- 

 tish, somewhat incurved, even, or occasionally more or less toothed on the back 

 (not wing-margined in our plant), nearly sessile, or, in var. PEDnNOtiLiTA, both 

 the cluster and the separate fraits evidently pedtmcled. — Ponds and slow 

 streams; rather rare. July. (Eu.) 



3. ZOSTERA, L. Grass-wkack. Eel-gkass. 



Flowers moncecious ; the two kinds naked and sessile and alternately arranged 

 in two rows on the midrib of one side of a linear leaf-liko spadix, which is liid- 

 den in a long and sheath-like base of a leaf (spathe) ; the sterile flowers consist- 



