
a 
16 FIVE CONSPICUOUS PLANT FAMILIES. 
modes of other noted families ; but continues its own conserva- 
tive way of bearing its flowers closely packed on a thick spadix 
and usually sheathing them with a handsome spathe. 
These tiny flowers are often imperfect and. sometimes naked, 
—that is, without calyx or corolla. When the latter are present 
they are seldom highly coloured. Under the microscope they 
are excellent studies and sometimes very beautiful. 
As a family they show a keen appreciation of harmony in the 
exquisite blending of colours in the spathe, or by its appearing 
spotlessly white. 
The white calla, the stately queen of the greenhouses, Jack in 
the pulpit and the skunk cabbage are all conspicuous members. 
The golden club is the wayward exception, in having no spathe. 
All are widely dissimilar in appearance and hold different posi- 
tions in life, and yet they bear so strongly the marks of this 
exclusive family as to be at once recognisable. The leaves are 
mostly rather netted-veined and the plants contain an acrid, 
pungent, watery juice. Many of them are also known as yield- 
ing an edible farina, or starch. 
THE, LILY. FAMILY: 
Liliacée. 
The lily family is one that is distinctly marked by its regular, 
symmetrical flowers. Its floral envelope is a perianth that is 
sometimes white or gaily coloured, but very rarely green. Al- 
most invariably it is of six equal parts. There are six stamens 
with two-celled anthers, and a three-celled ovary that is free 
from the receptacle. The style is undivided. The leaves are 
entire and parallel-veined, or sometimes netted-veined. 
The word lily would probably form as many different pic- 
tures in the mind as there were individuals to whom it had been 
presented. Some would at once recall the greenhouse calla, 
which, as has already been said, is no lily at all and a member 
of the arum family. Others would think of the pure resurrec- 
tion lily and again others would think of the swarthy, upright 
