Menodora. APOCYNACE^. 79 



the lobes and uppermost leaves linear : flowers sparse : lobes of the corolla obovate, 3 to 5 

 lines long, light yellow, sometimes purplish outside : short peduncles recurved in fruit. 

 DC. Prodr. viii. 310 ; Gray, 1. c. Bolivaria Grisebachii, Scheele in Linn. xxv. 254. Dry or 

 rich soil, Texas. (Adjacent Mex.) 



2. MENODOUOPSIS, Gray, 1. c. Corolla salverforrn with a long tube, glabrous 

 within; the oval or ovate lobes mucronate-acuminate : anthers almost sessile in 

 the throat, apiculate : flowers vespertine, odorous, bright yellow : calyx with 

 about 10 setaceous lobes, exceeding the fruit : habit of M. scabra. 



M. longiflora, Gray. Glabrous, numerous almost simple herbaceous stems a foot or 

 more high from a woody and branching base : leaves linear or lanceolate (an inch or less 

 long), smooth, entire (or some of the lowest rarely 3-cleft), the upper commonly alternate : 

 flowers several and cymose : tube of corolla 14- to 2 inches long, slightly widening to the 

 summit; the lobes half an inch long. Am. Jour. Sci. 1. c. 45. 8. & W. Texas, Lind- 

 heimer, Wright. 



M. pubens, Gray, 1. c. Pubescent throughout with soft and spreading hairs : leaves 

 rather broader : otherwise nearly resembling the preceding. Valley of the Pecos, western 

 part of Texas, Wright. 



ORDER LXXXVII. APOCYNACE^E. 



Herbaceous or woody plants, with milky and mostly acrid juice, simple and 

 entire pinnately-veined leaves, either alternate, opposite, or verticillate, no stipules, 

 and perfect regular 5-merous flowers ; the calyx free from the ovary or nearly so, 

 imbricated in the bud and persistent ; the lobes of the gamopetalous corolla con- 

 volute and often twisted in the bud ; stamens as many as the corolla-lobes and 

 alternate with them ; anthers introrsely dehiscent ; pollen of ordinary loose but 

 often glutinous grains ; two carpels either distinct or united into a 2-placentifer- 

 ous ovary ; a single common style, surmounted by a single stigma ; the proper 

 stigmatic surface a ring underneath a thickened or lengthened sterile terminal 

 portion. Ovules few or numerous, amphitropous or sometimes anatropous. Seeds 

 with or without a coma. Embryo straight and rather large, in sparing albumen. 

 Anthers distinct, but connivent around the stigma, and not rarely adhering to it 

 (by a process from the base of the connective). Inflorescence various : peduncles 

 either terminal or axillary. 



NERIUM OLEANDER, L., escaping from gardens and yards, inclines to be spontaneous in 

 Florida and Louisiana. 



THEVETIA NERIIFOLIA, Juss., of Tropical America, grows on Key West, doubtless in- 

 troduced. 



TRIBE I. PLUMERIE JE. Anthers free (unconnected with the stigma) ; the cells 

 polliniferous to the pointless and usually rounded base. Ovaries 2, connected only 

 by the common (filiform) style. Corolla sinistrorsely convolute in the bud, in our 

 genera unappendaged and salverform, with tube more or less dilated at summit. 

 (Caiyx in ours small, and anthers from ovate to oblong-lanceolate.) 



* Anthers blunt, on very short filaments, inserted and included in the throat or enlarged 

 summit of the tube of the corolla, which is villous or hispidulous : seeds not comose. 



-H- Disk none : leaves alternate. 



1. VALLESIA. Corolla conspicuously constricted at the orifice. Stigma clavate or 

 cylindrical. Carpels drupaceous in fruit, oblong or clavate and curved, 2 4-ovuled, 

 1-seeded. Seed erect : radicle inferior. Shrubs. 



2. AMSONIA. Corolla slightly or decidedly constricted at the villous throat. Stigma girt 

 underneath by a reflexed cup-like membrane ; the apex truncate-capitate or didymous. 

 Carpels many-ovuled, becoming slender terete and often torose follicles, erect, several- 



