SWEET FLAG AND CALLA 



By Adella Prescott. 



/^^XE of the things that is a constant surprise to the amateur 

 botanist, is the relationships that exist between plants 

 that are very unlike in general appearance, some members of 

 a family being elegant and aristocratic in habit and flower, 

 while others, like poor relations, have a full share of the family 

 virtues under a modest and inconspicuous guise. 



Something of this surprise I felt when I discovered that 

 the humble sweet flag {Acorns calamus) was a near relative 

 not only of our native calla, but of the exotic calla or ''lily of 

 the Nile" as well. It is a very common plant growing' in 

 swamps and along the margins of sluggish streams from Xova 

 Scotia to Florida and far westward. It has a thick creeping' 

 rootstock that is pungent and aromatic and which, being boiled 

 in syrup and then dried, was a favorite confection of other 

 days. 



The foliage consists of swordlike leaves and the cylindrical 

 spaclix emerging" from a scape very much like the leaves is so 

 inconspicuous that when as a child I discovered it and also 

 discovered that it was good to eat. I found very few of my 

 companions who had ever seen it, and we had no suspicion 

 that it was the flower of the plant. This spadix or fleshy axis 

 is densely covered \vith small perfect flowers which are light 

 greenish-yellow and very inconspicuous. 



Everyone knows the elegant calla of the florist, but as it is 

 an exotic anyway and too suggestive of funerals to be a suitable 



