The Prose of the Water Lily 
barbed arrow heads, and by its curious flower clusters, 
borne on stout stalks about the bases of the leaves. Each 
flower head is enveloped in a long, pointed hood, which in 
shape reminds one of a lobster’s claw. Down the front 
the hood is split, and through the crinkled folds of the 
opening light and air and ambassadors from the insect 
world find their way into the small flowers which are 
packed about a slender column resembling Cousin Jack 
within his pulpit. 
Although late in the year we often find the ripened 
seeds of the Jack lying about the woods in the most 
slovenly way, the arrow arum’s disposition of its seeds 
is in marked contrast to this. As they mature during 
the summer the stalks that bear them bend downward 
and carefully bury the precious harvest in the mud about 
the plant’s feet, where it remains snug and safe as pos¬ 
sible until spring sets it sprouting. The Indians, who 
were great grubbers of roots, discovered that the big 
root of the arrow arum—it sometimes weighs five or six 
pounds—is edible when baked, so they added it to their 
bill of fare. In the language of some of the Atlantic 
seaboard tribes it was called tuckahoe, a word which 
is familiar to us to-day as the name of a quaint old vil¬ 
lage of southeastern New Jersey, lolling under patriarchal 
trees “where the meadows meet the sea.” 
In spite of the large scale on which the white water 
lilies are picked—bushels of them being daily offered for 
sale on city streets—they are apparently as abundant in 
the ponds as ever they were, while many another wild 
flower grows annually scarcer near large towns. The 
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