1. In the District of Columbia Spathyema foetida may be found in bloom during moderately warm weather at any time from November to March or April. Each plant has but one blooming period per year, but while some bloom early and usually are frozen later, others under the same conditions of warmth remain unaffected and do not bloom until spring. 2. Growth of spathes is not by leaps and bounds, but is rather slow and continuous, apparently aided by the plant's own internal warmth. 3. Flower, foliage, fruit, and seeds may be seen in such a broken sequence that their relationship may not be very apparent. 4. Spathyema pursues a monopodial existence for an indefinite number of years until the first spathe appears, after which it is sympodial with a succession shoot bearing two leaves. The upper axillary bud always becomes the new terminal, while the lower one passes into reserve, developing only in case the terminal crown is destroyed. 5. During the monopodial stage the leaves are all rolled in the same direction, each entirely outside the next succeeding leaf. On reaching the sympodial stage growth expansion is facilitated by the constant reversal of direction in which the leaves are rolled. 6. Seeds are without seed coats, and the almost buried plumule is indistinguishable from the axillary buds held in reserve. 7. From a large crown as many as 31 leaf units have been dissected. These would provide the full complement of leaves for nearly three years, since it is rare to find a plant with more than 11 leaves expanded in one season. For each second leaf there is a spathe, but more than half of these are ultimately suppressed, probably through the mechanics of growth pressure, with the result of lessening the number of fruits and so securing a proper balance with photosynthesis. 8. Leaf arrangement in this species has been a moot question up to the present time. It is here shown to be definitely 2-5 during the monopodial stage, and this ratio is probably maintained throughout. 9. Spathyema, possessing contractile roots that year by year drag it downward into the soil, thereby wearing away by friction the lower end of the trunk, leaves no possible means of even estimating its age, which must be looked upon as indefinite.