Sepals 6, fugacious. Petals 6, oval, flat, larger than the sepals. Stamens 6; anthers oblong. Ovary oblong; style hardly any; stigma depressed. Ovules 5 or 6, attached to one side of the cell below the middle. Berry globose, few-seeded. Seeds oblong, with no aril.—A perennial glabrous herb, with thick horizontal rootstocks, sending up each year either a huge centrally peltate and cut-lobed, rounded, umbrella-like radical leaf, on a stout stalk, or a flowering stem bearing two similar (but smaller and more 2-cleft) alternate leaves which are peltate near one margin, and terminated by a cyme of white flowers. (Name composed of δίς, double, and φύλλον, leaf.)
1. D. cymòsa, Michx. Root-leaves 1–2° in diameter, 2-cleft, each division 5–7-lobed; lobes toothed; berries blue.—Wet or springy places, mountains of Va. and southward. May.
4. JEFFERSÒNIA, Barton. Twin-leaf.
Sepals 4, fugacious. Petals 8, oblong, flat. Stamens 8, anthers oblong-linear, on slender filaments. Ovary ovoid, soon gibbous, pointed, stigma 2-lobed. Pod pear-shaped, opening half-way round horizontally, the upper part making a lid. Seeds many in several rows on the lateral placenta, with a fleshy lacerate aril on one side.—A perennial glabrous herb, with matted fibrous roots, long-petioled root-leaves, parted into 2 half-ovate leaflets, and simple naked 1-flowered scapes. (Named in honor of Thomas Jefferson.)
1. J. diphýlla, Pers. Low; flower white, 1´ broad, the parts rarely in threes or fives.—Woods, western N. Y. to Wisc. and southward. April, May.—Called Rheumatism-root in some places.
5. PODOPHÝLLUM, L. May-apple. Mandrake.
Flower-bud with three green bractlets, which early fall away. Sepals 6, fugacious. Petals 6 or 9, obovate. Stamens twice as many as the petals in our species; anthers linear-oblong, not opening by uplifted valves. Ovary ovoid; stigma sessile, large, thick and undulate. Fruit a large fleshy berry. Seeds covering the very large lateral placenta, in many rows, each seed enclosed in a pulpy aril, all forming a mass which fills the cavity of the fruit.—Perennial herbs, with creeping rootstocks and thick fibrous roots. Stems 2-leaved, 1-flowered. (Name from ποῦς, a foot, and φύλλον, a leaf, probably referring to the stout petioles.)
1. P. peltàtum, L. Stamens 12–18; leaves 5–9-parted, the lobes oblong, rather wedge-shaped, somewhat lobed and toothed at the apex.—Rich woods, common. May.—Flowerless stems terminated by a large round 7–9-lobed leaf, peltate in the middle like an umbrella. Flowering stems bearing two one-sided leaves, with the stalk fixed near their inner edge; the nodding white flower from the fork nearly 2´ broad. Fruit ovoid, 1–2´ long, ripe in July, sweet and slightly acid, edible. The leaves and roots are drastic and poisonous!—Found occasionally with from 2 to 6 carpels!
Order 6. NYMPHÆÀCEÆ. (Water-Lily Family.)
Aquatic perennial herbs, with horizontal rootstocks and peltate or sometimes only cordate leaves floating or emersed; the ovules borne on the sides or back (or when solitary hanging from the summit) of the cells, not on the ventral suture; the embryo enclosed in a little bag at the end of the albumen next the hilum, except in Nelumbium, which has no albumen. Radicle hardly any; cotyledons thick and fleshy, enclosing a well-developed plumule.—Flowers axillary, solitary. Vernation involute. Rootstocks apparently endogenous.—The few genera differ so much in the flower and fruit that they are separated into the three following suborders.