54 NYMPILfflACE-ffi. ( WATER-LILY FAMILY.) 



making a lid. Seeds many in several rows on the lateral placenta, -with a fleshy 

 lacerate aril on one side. — A perennial glabrous herb, with matted fibrous roots, 

 long-petioled root-leaves, parted into 2 hall-ovate leaflets, and simple naked 1- 

 flowered scapes. (Named in honor of Thomas Jefferson.) 



1. J. diph^lla, Pers. — Woods, W. New York to Wisconsin and south- 

 ward. April, May. — Low. Flower white, 1' broad : the parts rarely in threes 

 or fives. — Called Rheumatism-root in some places. 



5. PODOPHYLLUM, L. May-Apple. Mandrake. 



Flower-bud with 3 green bractlets, which early fall away. Sepals 6, fuga- 

 cious. Petals 6 or y, obovate. Stamens as many as the petals in the Hima- 

 layan species, twice as many in ours : anthers linear-oblong, not opening by 

 uplifted valves. Ovary ovoid : stigma sessile, large, thick, and undulate. Fruit 

 a large fleshy berry. Seeds covering the very large lateral placenta, in many 

 rows, each seed enclosed in a pulpy aril, all forming a mass which fills the cav- 

 ity of the fruit. — Perennial herbs, with creeping rootstocks and thick fibrous 

 roots. Stems 2-leaved, 1-flowered. (Name from ttovs, afoot, and (pvXXov, a leaf, 

 from a fancied resemblance of the 5-7-parted leaf to the foot of some web- 

 footed animal.) 



1. P. peltatum ? L. Stamens 12-18; leaves 5-9-parted; the lobes ob- 

 long, rather wedge-shaped, somewhat lobed and toothed at the apex. — Rich 

 woods, common. Mav- — Flowerless stems terminated by a large round 7-9- 

 lobed leaf, peltaie in the middle like an umbrella. Flowering stems bearing 

 two one-sided leaves, with the stalk fixed near their inner edge; the nodding 

 white flower from the fork nearly 2' broad. Fruit ovoid, l'-2' long, ripe in 

 July, sweet and slightly acid, edible. The leaves and roots are drastic and 

 poisonous ! — Found occasionally with from 2 to 6 carpels ! 



Order 6. NYMPH^EACE^l. (Water-Lily Family.) 



Aquatic perennial herbs, with horizontal rootstocks and peltate or sometimes 

 only cordate leaves floating or emersed ; the ovules borne on the sides or back 

 (or when solitary hanging from the summit) of the cells, not on the venfral 

 suture; the embryo enclosed in a little bag at the end of the albumen next 

 the hilum, except in Nelumbium, which has no albumen. Radicle hardly 

 any : cotyledons thick and fleshy, enclosing a well-developed plumule. — 

 Flowers axillary, solitary. Leaves rolled inwards in vernation. Root- 

 stocks very obscurely exogenous in structure. — Comprises a few genera, 

 which differ so much in the flower and fruit, that, for the sake of con- 

 venient definition, we have formerly treated as separate orders the follow- 

 ing suborders : 



Suborder I. CABOMBEJE. (Water-Shield Family.) 



Sepals and petals each 3 or sometimes 4, hypogynous and persistent. 

 Stamens definite (6-18). Pistils 2-18, free and distinct, coriaceous and 



