WILD FLOWERS OF NEW YORK 4 1 



Wild Calla ; Water Arum 

 Calla palustris Linnaeus 



Plate 4 



A perennial herb of swamps and bogs with long, acrid rootstocks, 

 covered with sheathing scales and with fibrous roots at the nodes, from 

 which arise numerous petioled leaves with thick, entire, glossy green, 

 broadly ovate or suborbicular leaf blades 2 to 5 inches wide, cuspidate or 

 pointed at the apex and deeply cordate at the base. Flowering scapes 

 about as long as the petioles, sheathed at the base, bearing at the summit 

 an ovate-lanceolate or elliptic, acuminate, open spathe, white within and 

 greenish without, sometimes with a second spathe nearly opposite the 

 first and smaller in size, or rarely the two of equal size. Spadix cylindric, 

 much shorter than the spathe, densely covered with perfect flowers, or 

 the uppermost flowers staminate. The individual flowers on the spadix 

 possess usually six stamens and no perianth. Ovaries ripening into a large 

 head of red berries. 



Frequent in swamps and bogs, especially northward. Rare in the 

 southern part of the State. Flowering from late May to early July, the 

 fruit ripening from June to August. 



Skunk Cabbage 



Spathyema foetida (Linnaeus) Ratine sque 



Plate s 



A fetid herb, and the first plant to flower in the spring. The leaves 

 are large, ovate, cordate, numerous in dense crowns, becoming in summer 

 1 to 3 feet long and 1 foot wide, but at flowering time scarcely beginning 

 to unfold. Rootstock thick, descending, terminating in whorls of fleshy 

 fibers. Spathe preceding the leaves, erect, 3 to 6 inches high, 1 to 3 inches 

 in diameter, convolute, firm and fleshy, often one-fourth to one-half of an 

 inch thick in the middle, pointed, completely inclosing the spadix, brown 

 to greenish yellow, usually mottled, its short scape usually below the surface. 



