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. SUBORDER I. Cabómbeæ. Sepals and petals each 3 or sometimes 4, hypogynous and persistent. Stamens definite (3--18). Pistils 2--18, free and distinct, coriaceous and indehiscent, 1--3-seeded on the dorsal suture.--Stems slender, leafy, coated with mucilage. Flowers small. 1. Cabomba. Stamens 3--4. Carpels 2--3. Submersed leaves capillary-multifid. 2. Brasenia. Stamens 12--18. Carpels 4--18. Leaves all peltate. SUBORDER II. Nelumbòneæ. Sepals and petals numerous in several rows, passing gradually into each other, and with the indefinitely numerous stamens hypogynous and deciduous. Pistils several, 1-ovuled, separately immersed in the obconical receptacle, which is much enlarged and broadly top-shaped at maturity, the imbedded nut-like fruits resembling small acorns. Embryo large; no albumen.--Petioles and peduncles all from the tuberous rootstock, the centrally peltate leaves and the flowers large. 3. Nelumbo. Character of the Suborder.