236 RHAMNACEAE. 



Family 60. BALSAMINACEAE. BALSAM FAMILY. 



Usually glaucous succulent herbs with watery juice; leaves 

 alternate, simple, without stipules; flowers irregular with a 

 petal-like imbricated usually spurred calyx; petals 4, united in 

 two pairs; stamens 5, with short filaments and more or less 

 united anthers; ovary 5-celled; seeds without endosperm. 



313. IMPATIENS. JEWEL WEED. 



Delicate herbs with translucent stems; leaves coarsely toothed, 

 petioled; flowers axillary or panicled, often of two kinds, large 

 sterile ones and smaller cleistogamous ones which ripen good seed ; 

 sepals apparently four, the posterior ones usually spurred; petals 

 4, united in two pairs; filaments 5, each with a scale-like append- 

 age; appendages united and covering the stigma; pod with 

 evanescent partitions, opening suddenly when touched and 

 projecting the seeds. 



Impatiens nolitangere L. (I. occidentalis Rydb.) Touch-me-not. Annual, 

 glabrous, 60-90 cm. high, pale green, slightly glaucous; leaves oval to elliptical, 

 coarsely crenate-serrate, rounded or subcordate at base, paler beneath, 5-10 

 cm. long, on shorter petioles; flowers pale yellow; saccate sepal much longer 

 than broad, gradually tapering into a long recurved spur. 



In moist woods, Whatcom County, Washington, and northward. 



Family 61. RHAMNACEAE. BUCKTHORN FAMILY. 



Erect shrubs or small trees; leaves simple; stipules small and 

 early deciduous or none; flowers small and regular, sometimes 

 polygamo-dioecious ; disk fleshy; calyx 4- or 5-toothed; petals 

 4 or 5, on the disk, or sometimes none; stamens 4 or 5, perigynous, 

 alternate with the sepals and opposite the petals; ovary sessile; 

 fruit a drupe or pod, with 1 seed in each cell ; endosperm sparingly 

 fleshy. 



Fruit a drupe; flowers solitary or in umbels. 314. RHAMNUS, 236. 



Fruit a dry capsule; flowers in panicles. 315. CEANOTHUS, 237. 



314. RHAMNUS. BUCKTHORN. 



Shrubs or small trees; leaves alternate, petioled, pinnately- 

 veined, with small deciduous stipules; flowers greenish, polygam- 

 ous or dioecious, in axillary clusters; calyx 4- or 5-cleft; calyx- 

 tube bell-shaped, lined with the disk, both free from the ovary; 

 petals 5, small, oblong, sessile, acute or none; stamens 4 or 5; 

 ovary 2-4-celled; fruit a berry-like drupe, with 2-4 separate seed- 

 like nutlets. 



