N. O. AROIDE^ 1331 



converging within the margin. Spathe white, obliquely campa- 

 nulate, Jin. long, alternately gibbous or tubular and closed below, 

 contracted about the middle, dilated and nearly circular above, 

 tubular below. Spadix adnate to the back of the tube of the 

 spathe, free above. Male inflorescence of few sessile connate. 

 Stamens beneath the apex of spadix, slits vertical, with a ring 

 or confluent minute neuters below them. Female inflorescence 

 a solitary conico-ovoid, 1-celled ovary. Style conical, stigma dis- 

 coid ; ovules many, or thotropous, basal or subparietal. Fruit 

 membranous, few-seeded. Seeds oblong or obovoid, albumin- 

 ous, testa at length rugose ; embryo minute, apical, cuneiform. 



The leaves are connected together into a rose-shaped tuft, and these send 

 out runners bearing other plants in all stages of growth. 



The flowers, or inflorescence, are nestled at the base of the leaf, and it 

 inay easily be seen there, by some of the young unfolded leaves, that the 

 spathe which encloses the flowers is nothing but a modified leaf, the lower 

 sides involute, and bearing the stamens and pistil. 



The roots descend loose into the water, with no necessary attachment to 

 soil or mud, and are long and feathery. 



In tropical countries it is most abundant in all the ponds of water preserv- 

 ed for public use, and keeps the water always fresh and cool, which would 

 be greatly subject to putrefaction and charged with a multitude of insects, 

 had they continued exposed to the heat of the sun. The plant, however, 

 is there considered acrid, and when the droughts set in and the waters are 

 reduced very low, they are overheated and so impregnated with the par- 

 ticles of this vegetable, that they occasion bloody fluxes to such as are 

 obliged to use them at those seasons. (Curtis' Botanical Magazine for 

 February 1st, 1851.) 



Uses : — The plant is cooling and demulcent, and is given in 

 dysuria. The leaves are made into poultices and applied to 

 haemorrhoids. Mixed with rice and cocoanut milk they are 

 given in dysentery, and with rose-water and sugar in cough 

 and asthma. The root is laxative and emollient. (Rheede ; 

 Ainslie ; Voight.) 



Captain W. 0. Swanston, in a letter dated Camp at Tan j ore, 

 2nd July, 1863, to the Assistant Inspector-General, Madras 

 Police, wrote that the plant destroyed most effectually the bugs 

 that invested the Tan j ore jail. 



" The plant is just put down close to the walls in the floor, 

 and its smell apparently has the effect of enticing the bug to it, 



