PROPAGATION OF WILD-DUCK FOODS. 39 
Tender white stolons or runners extend in various directions from 
the rootstock. These runners are from a quarter to half an inch in 
diameter. During the active growing season they give rise to new 
plants, but in autumn they form peculiar hibernating bodies. These 
consist of the short modified tip of the stolon, which bears several 
(1 to 7) upwardly directed buds on one side and a cluster (2 to 17) 
of thick tuberlike roots on the other. The appearance of these (fig. 
34) is strongly suggestive of a miniature " hand " of bananas, and for 
this reason the name banana waterlily has been proposed for this 
plant, which has no distinctive vernacular appellation. The name 
has the additional merit of suggesting the yellow color of the tubers 
and of the flowers. 
B236M 
Fig. 34. — Hibernating bodies of banana waterlily. (Two-thirds natural size.) 
DISTRIBUTION. 
The banana waterlily has been known chiefly as a native of Flor- 
ida, and the plants of that State have long gone under the name 
Castalia flava. Plants identified from a few localities in Mexico 
and from Brownsville, Tex., have been called C. mexicana. Dr. H. 
S. Conard, who has monographed the genus, 1 unites these species, 
as he is fully justified in doing, on the basis of their possession in 
common of characters unique among waterlilies. The new records 
of the plant from Galveston, Tex., and Avery Island, La., go far 
toward bridging the previous apparent gap in distribution of the 
plant and toward corroborating Dr. Conard's views. The accom- 
panying map (fig. 35) shows the probable natural range of the 
species along the Gulf coast and in Mexico. 
1 Publication No. 4, Carnegie Institution, 1905. 
