1 . Melochia L . B roo m- wood 



Shrubs or herbs, with pubescence of simple or stellate hairs; leaves dentate; 

 flowers mostly small, in cymes or dense axillary glomerules; involucel present or 

 wanting; calyx 5-lobate; petals 5, spatulate, marcescent; stamens 5, the filaments 

 connate at the base or higher; capsule 5-celled, loculicidally 5-valvate, the cells 

 1 -seeded; carpels easily separating, sometimes indehiscent. 



About 75 species in warm regions of both hemispheres. 



1. Involucel of 3 or more bractlets; capsule subglobose, scarcely beaked, 5 mm. 



or less wide 1. M. corchorifolia. 



1. Involucel wanting; capsule angular or pyramidal, long-beaked, much more 



than 5 mm. wide 2. M. pyramidata. 



1. Melochia corchorifolia L. 



Stem to 15 dm. high, glabrous or sparingly pubescent, virgately branched; leaves 

 with petioles to about 2 cm. long, ovate to ovate-lanceolate, to 6 cm. long and 3 cm. 

 wide, irregularly serrate and sometimes lobate, usually entirely glabrous; flower 

 cluster dense; calyx lobes acute; petals purple or with the claw yellowish, 4-7 mm. 

 long; capsule subglobose, strigose with simple hairs, 4-4.5 mm. in diameter. 



Old fields, in water of borrow pits and rice fields, cult, grounds and waste places 

 in s.e. Tex., Aug.-Oct.; from Fla. to Tex. and S.C, s. to Braz.; also Old World 

 tropics, where native. 



2. Melochia pyramidata L. Fig. 524A. 



Slender shrub to 2 m. high, often herbaceous, lightly pubescent to glabrate 

 throughout; leaves with slender petioles to 12 mm. long, rounded-ovate to lanceo- 

 late, obtuse to short-acuminate at apex, rounded to broadly cuneate at base, to 35 

 mm. long and 2 cm. wide, serrate, thin, green, glabrous or frequently sparsely 

 pubescent; flowers solitary or in axillary cymes, mostly pedicellate; calyx lobes long- 

 acuminate; petals pink or violet, about 7 mm. long; capsule broadly triangular in 

 outline, glabrate or sparsely puberulent, 5-6 mm. long and somewhat broader, the 

 lobes truncate or broadly rounded at base, acute and spreading, seeds dull-brown 

 to black. 



In wet sandy or rocky soil in mesquite thickets, palm groves, stream beds, about 

 ponds, ditches and waste places in the Edwards Plateau and Trans-Pecos, s. to the 

 coast in Tex., Apr .-Nov.; widely distributed in the warmer regions of both 

 hemispheres. 



We have only var. pyramidata. 



Fam. 89. Hypericaceae Juss. St. John's-wort Family 



Annual or perennial herbs or shrubs; leaves with or without a basal articulation, 

 opposite, entire, glandular-dotted as seen under a lens with transmitted light, mostly 

 sessile, exstipulate; flowers perfect, usually regular and hypogynous; sepals 4 or 5, 

 imbricated in the bud, herbaceous, with or without a basal articulation, persistent; 

 petals 4 or 5, mostly deciduous, oblique and mostly convolute in the bud; stamens 

 many or few, sometimes grouped in 3 or more clusters or bundles; capsule 1 -celled, 

 with 2 to 5 parietal placentae and as many usually persistent styles, sometimes 3- to 

 7-celled by the union of the placentae in the center, mostly septicidally dehiscent; 

 seeds numerous, usually areolate or reticulate. 



Approximately 1,000 species in about 50 genera, primarily tropical in distribu- 

 tion. 



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