Calla

a favorite house plant of African origin. Though called a calla lily it is not a lily at all, but a relative of jack-in-the-pulpit. A column of flowers, known as a spadix, rises in the center of a cupshaped leaf which is prolonged at one end to a tip. This leaf or spathe is really no part of the flower, but its spotless, lily-like whiteness, in most species, has given the name. One kind, very numerous in the Nile, is called the lily of the Nile. The spathe of one species is pink, and there is a black calla as well. A small greenish calla grows wild in the tamarack swamps and streams of eastern North America, as well as in Europe and Asia. Calla plants for the house should be started in late summer from dry tubers. Botanists do not class the house plants among the callas.