oQ AFOCTNUM* No. 7. 



pale beneath, ovate, acute, entire, two or three inches 

 long, with one large nerve. - 



Flowers on cymose racemes, lateral and terminal; 

 always longer than the leaves, lax nodding and few 

 flowered. Minute acute bracts on the peduncles. 

 Calyx short, five cleft, acute.^ Corolla white, tinged 

 with red, similar to a little bell, divided into five 

 spreading acute segments at the top. Stamina five, 

 with short filaments, anthers connivent arrow shap- 

 ed, cohering with the stegyne or singular body co- 

 vering and concealing the pistils, (mistaken for a stig- 

 ma by many Botanists) : it is thick and round. Five 

 glandular corpuscles, (called nectaries by some,) al* 

 ternate with the stamina. Two pistils ovate, con- 

 cealed, two sessile stigmas. Fruit a pair oi follicles, 



single stigma. 



^pocynum means dogsbane in Greek, and the 

 specific name implies the similitude of the leaves to 

 ^ndrosemum. There are some other species of the 

 same genus in North America, but none so pretty^ 



All have small white flowers, while in this the flo^'- 



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f 



J 



slender, linear, acute, drooping, cylindrical. Seeds 



numerous, oblong, embricate, seated on a central re- 



ceptacle or spermophore, and crowned by a long 

 down. 



r 



HISTORY— A pretty and interesting plant be- , 

 longing to a very distinct genus, which gives name to | 

 a large natural tribe of plants the Apocynes, distin- 

 guished by the singular stegyne, double follicles, &c. 

 In the Linnaaan system they are put in PentandRI'* 

 digyniaj although the stegyne was mistaken for » 



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