MARANTACE^ OE CANNACE^ — MUSACE^. 607 



Tarely 1-celled ; ovules solitary and erect, or numerous and attached 

 to the axis ; style petaloid or swollen ; stigma either the naked apex 

 of the style, or hollow, hooded, and incurved. Fruit a 3-celled cap- 

 sule, or baccate, 1-celled and 1-seeded. Seeds round, without arillus ; 

 ■embryo straight, in hard, somewhat ;floury albumen, without a vitellus ; 

 radicle lyiag against the hilum (fig. 626, p. 355).— Herbaceous plants, 

 with tuberous rhizomes, and leaves and flowers, similar to those of the 

 •Ginger Family. They are natives of tropical America and Africa ; 

 several are found in India ; none are known in a wild state beyond 

 the tropics. Authors enumerate 9 genera, including 164 species. 

 Examples — Maranta, Oanna, Phrynium. 



The plan1;s of the order contain much starch in the rhizomes and 

 roots. They are destitute of aroma. Arrow-root is the produce of 

 the tuberous rhizomata of Maranta arwndinacea and M. indica. The 

 former grows in the tropical parts of America and in the West Indian 

 Islands ; the latter in Bengal, Java, and the Philippines. The best 

 West Indian arrow-root comes from Bermuda. Its globules are much 

 smaller and less glistening than those of tous-les-mois or of potato starch. 

 Amylaceous matter of a similar kind is produced from other species 

 of Maranta, as well as from species of Canna. Tous-les-mois is the 

 produce of Oanna coccinea, O. Achiras, G. edulis, etc. Hanbury thinks 

 that the name of this kind of starch is a corruption of Touloula, a 

 ■Carib designation of Oanna. The seeds of Oannas are round and 

 black, and are commonly known under the name of Indian shot. 

 They have been used as a substitute for coffee. Galathea zehrina, 

 Zebra plant, is so called from the peculiar variegation of its leaves, 

 which have a velvety aspect. Barn^oud states that the two outer 

 verticils of the flowers in Cannas are always developed, one after the 

 ■other, precisely like the calyx and corolla ; while the verticil, some- 

 times called petals, is really metamorphosed stamens, and hence its 

 irregular aspect. 



Order 189. — Mitsace*, the Banana Family. {Mono-E'pigyn.) 

 Perianth 6-cleft, adherent, petaloid, in 2 whorls, more or less irregular. 

 , Stamens 6, inserted on the middle of the segments of the perianth, 

 some usually abortive ; anthers linear, dithecal, introrse, often with a 

 membranous petaloid crest. Ovary inferior, 3-celled ; ovules numer- 

 ous, anatropal ; style simple ; stigma usually 3-lobed. Fruit either a 

 3-celled capsule, with loculicidal dehiscence, or succulent and indehis- 

 cent. Seeds sometimes surrounded by hairs ; testa usually crusta- 

 ceous ; embryo erect, in the axis of mealy albumen ; radicle touching 

 the hUum. — Plants without true aerial stems, or nearly so, having 

 shoots proceeding from subterranean root-stocks, which form spurious 

 stems, composed of the sheathing leaf-stalks. Veins in the limb of the 

 leaf parallel, and proceeding in a curved manner from the midrib to 

 the margin (fig. 160, p. 83). Flowers bursting through spathes. 



