No. 390. ] MONOCOTYLEDONOUS FLOWERS. 495 
Plants under Domestication ” that red wheats and red sugar 
canes are more hardy than white, and I have also noticed that 
the most vigorous variety of maize or Indian corn in my garden 
had purplish-red culms, glumes, and silk. The red coloring of 
the styles is believed to favor the growth of the pollen tubes 
and occurs in many flowers. Leaf variegation is found in some 
grasses, as in Eulalia, one beautiful variety of which has the 
— leaves striped longitudinally with white, and in another marked 
transversely with yellow. 
Many Aracez are cultivated for their handsome foliage, 
which is marbled or striped with yellow, white, purple, and red. 
The capability of the leaf to produce bright coloration has 
determined the adaptation of the spathe for attractive purposes, 
and its development has been attended by the reduction or sup- 
pression of the perianth. The spathe of Avzsema triphyllum, 
Indian turnip, is variegated with purplish and white stripes, 
and C. M. Weed found the flowers visited by small diptera of 
the genus Mycetophila, or family of fungus gnats. Symplocar- 
pus fetidus, the skunk cabbage, has the spathe spotted and 
striped with purple and yellowish-green ; the odor is repulsive, 
and the visitors are small active flies of the genus Phora. 
Calla palustris has a conspicuous white spathe and, according 
to Eu. Warming, pond snails aid in the fertilization; Delpino 
mentions more than 4 European species of Aracez, which, 
in his opinion, are fertilized by snails. In Orontium the per- 
fect bright yellow flowers are densely crowded over the narrow 
spadix, and the green spathe is distant, investing only the 
lower part of the scape. The investigation of the numerous 
tropical species of this family promises to reveal many remark- 
able adaptations. The Lemnacez are regarded as simplified 
Aracez, and the minute green flowers, in the opinion of Ludwig 
and Miiller, are adapted to insects which live upon the surface 
of the water. 
The small yellow flowers of the Xyridacez, which are regu- 
lar, trimerous, and solitary in the axils of scale-like bracts, are 
evidently primitive in type, and are probably derived directly 
from ancestral green forms. This transition is illustrated in 
Hypoxis, which has the perianth segments yellow above, but 
