arace^e. (arum family.) 475 



Class II. MON C OT YLED ONOU S or EN- 

 DOGENOUS PLANTS. 



Stems with no manifest distinction into bark, wood, and 

 pith ; but the woody fibre and vessels in bundles or threads 

 which are irregularly imbedded in the cellular tissue : peren- 

 nial trunks destitute of annual layers. Leaves mostly paral- 

 lel-veined (nerved) and sheathing at the base, seldom sepa- 

 rating by an articulation, almost always alternate or scattered 

 and not toothed. Parts of the flower commonly in threes. 

 Embryo with a single cotyledon, and the leaves of the plu- 

 mule alternate. 



Order 107. ABACEJE. (Arum Family.) 



Plants with acrid or pungent juice, simple or compound often veiny leaves, 

 and flowers crowded on a spadix, which is usually surrounded by a. spaihe. 

 — Floral envelopes none, or of 4 - G sepals. Fruit usually a berry. Seeds 

 with fleshy albumen, or none but filled with the large fleshy embryo in 

 Nos. 2, 4, and 5. A large family, chiefly tropical. Herbage abounding 

 in slender rhaphides. — The genuine Aracese have no floral envelopes, and 

 are almost all monoecious or dioecious : but the genera of the second section 

 with more highly developed flowers are not to be separated. 



# Spathe surrounding or subtending the spadix : flowers naked ; i. e. without perianth. 



1. Arissema. Flowers monoecious or dioecious, covering only the base of the spadix. 



2. Peltandra. Flowers monoecious, covering the spadix ; anthers above, ovaries below. 



3. Calla. Flowers perfect (at least the lower ones), covering the whole of the short spadix. 



Spathe open and spreading. 

 * * Spathe surrounding the spadix in No. 4, none or imperfect in the rest : flowers with a 

 calyx or perianth and perfect, covering the whole spadix. 



4. Symplocarpus. Spadix globular, in a fleshy shell-shaped spathe. Stemless. 



5. Orontium. Spadix'narrow, naked, terminating the terete scape. 



6. Acorns. Spadix cylindrical, borne on the side of a leaf-like scape. 



1. ARISiEMA, Martius. Indian Turnip. Dk agon-Arum. 



Spathe convolute below and mostly arched above. Flowers monoecious or 

 by abortion dioecious, covering- only the base of the spadix, which is elongated 

 and naked above. Floral envelopes none. Sterile flowers above the fertile, 

 each of a cluster of almost sessile 2 - 4-celled anthers, opening by pores or chinks 

 at the top. Fertile flowers consisting each of a 1 -celled ovary, tipped with a 

 depressed stigma, and containing 5 or 6 orthotropous ovules erect from the base 



