3 
Embryo in Lilaea subulata , H.B.K. 
where the water collected and formed shallow pools. These 
seemed to offer the most favourable conditions for the 
germination of the seeds. Of course the time of germination 
varies with the time of the rains, but in January, 1897, the 
plants were found in various stages of germination ; and 
in 1895, an unusually rainy winter, the plants were well in 
flower in February. 
The general aspect of the plant is curiously like Isoetes, the 
subulate leaves forming dense tufts from the short, bulb-like 
stem. The leaves are strictly two-ranked, and numerous 
white unbranched roots fasten the plant into the soft mud. 
The arrangement of the leaves and roots, as well as that of 
the flowers, has been given in detail by Hieronymus 1 , and 
will be discussed only briefly here. The flowers are ex- 
ceedingly simple in structure, but nevertheless show much 
variation, at least in the pistillate flowers which exhibit 
heterostylism in a very remarkable degree. 
After the young plant has produced several — usually from 
five to seven — leaves, the axis becomes transformed into 
a shaft bearing a spike of flowers; while in the axil of the 
last-formed leaf is formed a shoot which, after producing 
a single leaf, is transformed also into an inflorescence like 
that derived from the original stem-apex, and in the axil of 
the leaf is formed another shoot which behaves in the same 
way. Thus the branching of the plant is sympodial. In 
addition to the flowers borne upon the spike, there are usually 
found two close to the base of the shaft but not outgrowths 
of it. These basal flowers are always pistillate, and are 
distinguished by their extremely long styles, which may reach 
a length of several centimetres (14 c. in some cases, according 
to Hieronymus). 
The lowest flowers of the spike, where these are pistillate, 
are destitute of any subtending bract or leaf, but the other 
flowers are borne in the axil of a small bract. Of the 
pistillate flowers borne upon the spike, the lower ones are 
Monografia de Lilaea. 
