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PRIMULACEZ. (PRIMROSE FAMILY.) 
Herbs, with simple leaves, regular perfect flowers, calyx usually free 
from the ovary, stamens as many as the lobes of the gamopetalous 
(rarely polypetalous) corolla and inserted opposite them (on tube or 
base), single style and stigma, and a 1-celled ovary with a central free 
placenta rising from the base and bearing several or many seeds. 
* Ovary wholly free. 
+ Stemless, leaves all in a cluster from the root. 
1. Dodecatheon. Corolla reflexed, 5-parted: stamens exserted, connivent in a 
cone: capsule dehiscent by valves or teeth. 
++ Stems leafy: corolla rotate. 
2. Steironema. Corolla 5-parted: 5 slender staminodia between the fertile sta- 
mens: capsule mostly globose, dehiscent vertically by valves or irregularly: leaves 
opposite. . 
3. Centunculus. Corolla 4 or 5-cleft, shorter than calyx: globose capsule with 
top falling off as a lid: flowers axillary: leaves alternate. 
** Ovary connate at base with the base of the calyx. 
4. Samolus. Corolla bell-shaped, with 5 staminodia in the sinuses: flowers race- 
mose. 
1. DODECATHEON L. (AMERICAN COWSLIP.) 
Perennial smooth herb, with a cluster of oblong or spatulate leaves, 
simple naked scape involucrate with small bracts at summit and bear- 
ing an ample umbel of showy rose-color or white flowers nodding on 
slender pedicels, deeply 5-cleft calyx with reflexed lanceolate divi- 
sions, corolla with very short tube, thickened throat and 5-parted re- 
flexed limb (the divisions long and narrow), short filaments monadel- 
phous at base, and long and linear anthers approximate in a slender 
cone. 
1. D. Meadia L. (Suootine-star.) A handsome Atlantic species, extending into 
Texas. 
2. STEIRONEMA Raf. 
Leafy-stemmed perennials (glabrous except the ciliate petioles), op- 
posite leaves, slender axillary peduncles bearing yellow flowers, 
5-parted calyx, rotate deeply 5-parted corolla (with no proper tube) 
with ovate cuspidate-pointed divisions (erose-denticulate above) each 
separately involute around its stamen, distinct filaments (or nearly so) 
on the ring at base of corolla and alternating with 5 subulate stami- 
nodia, linear anthers, and a 10 to 20-seeded pod. 
1. 8. ciliatum Raf. Stem erect, 6 to 12 dm. high: leaves lanceolate-ovate, 5 to 15 
em. long, tapering to an acute point, rounded or heart-shaped at base, all on long 
and fringed petioles: corolla longer than calyx. (Lysimachia ciliata L.)—Low 
grounds and thickets, Atlantic and Gulf States and west to New Mexico; hence pre- 
sumably in Texas, but as yet not reported, 
