276 MILKWEED FAMILY. 



88. ASCLEPIADACE^l, MILKWEED FAMILY. 



Plants with milky juice, leaves, pistils, fruit*, and seeds nearly as 

 in the preceding family ; but the anthers more connected with the 

 stigma, their pollen collected into firm waxy or granular masses 

 (mostly 10), the short filaments (monadelphous except in the last 

 genus) commonly bear curious appendages behind the anthers form- 

 ing what is called a crown, and the corolla more commonly valvate 

 in the bud. The flowers are rather too difficult for the beginner 

 readily to understand throughout. For a particular study of them 

 the Manual must be used. 



1. Erect herbs, with ordinary foliage, and deeply 5-parted reflexed calyx and 

 corolla. Fknvers in simple umbels. Fruit a pair of pods (follicles,} containing 

 numerous fiat seeds furnished with a coma (Lessons, p. 135, fig. 317) or long 

 tuft of soft down at one end. 



1. ASCLEPIAS. Stamens with their short filaments monadelphous in a ring or 



tube, bearing behind each anther a curious erect and hood-like or ear-like 

 appendage, with a horn projecting out of the inside of it: the 5 broad anthers 

 closely surrounding and partly adhering to the very thick stigma, a mem- 

 branous appendage at their tip inflected over it. Each of the 2 cells of the 

 anther has a firm waxy pear-shaped pollen-mass in it: and the two adja- 

 cent masses from two contiguous anthers are suspended by a stalk from a 

 dark gland; these 5 glands, borne on the margin of the flat top of the stigma, 

 stick to the legs, &c. of insects, and are carried off, each gland taking with it 

 2 pollen masses, the whole somewhat resembling a pair ot saddle-bags. 



2. ACERATES. Like Asclepias, but no horn in the hoods or ear-like appendages, 



and the flowers always greenish. 



2. Twining plants with ordinary foliage ; pods and seeds nearly as in Asclepias. 



* Anthers with their hanging pollen-masses nearly as Asclepias : pods smooth and even. 



3. ENSLENIA. Calyx and corolla 5-parted, the divisions lance-ovate and nearly 



erect. The 5 appendages of the filaments are in the form of membranaceous 

 leaflets, each bearing a pair of awns on their truncate tip. Herb. 



4. VINCETOXICUM. Corolla 5-parted, wheel-shaped. A flat and fleshy 



5 - 10-lobed disk or crown in place of the hoods of Asclepias. Herbs. 



* * The 10 pollen-masses horizontal, fixed in pairs to 5 glands of the stigma. 

 6. GONOLOBUS. Corolla wheel-shaped: a fleshy and wary-lobed ring or crown 

 in its throat. 



* * # The 10 short pollen-masses fixed by their bctee in pairs to the 5 glands of (he 



stigma, and erect. Shrubby plants, of tropical regions. 



6. HOYA. Corolla wheel-shaped. 5-lobed, thick and wax-like in appearance. 



Crown of 5 thick and depressed fleshy appendages radiating from the central 

 column. 



7. STEPHANOTIS. Corolla salver-shaped, the tube including the stamens, 



crown, &c., in its somewhat swollen base, the 5 ovate lobes convolute in the 

 bud. Crown of 5 thin erect appendages. Stigma conical. 



* * # * Anthers distinct, the 5 pollen-masses each composed of 4 small granular 



masses united, and applied directly to the glands of the stigma without any stalk. 

 Shrubby turiners. 



8. PERIPLOCA. Corolla 5-parted, wheel-shaped, the divisions hairv on the 



upper face: alternate with them are 5 small thick scales, each bearing a 

 bristle-shaped appendage. Filaments distinct, bearing anthers of more ordi- 

 nary appearance than in the rest of this family. Stigma hemispherical. 

 Pods smooth. 



3. Fleshy low plants, Cactus-like, with only small fi^shy scales or teeth in place of 

 leaves, on the angles of the thickened stems or branches. 



9. STAPELIA. Flowers large, lurid, solitary, lateral. Calyx 5-parted. Corolla 



5-cleft, wheel-shaped: within is a crown formed of two rings of short appen- 

 dages or lobes. Masses of waxy pollen 10, erect. 



