APIOS 



first place the color is unusual. The books describe 

 the flowers as brownish or chocolate-red, but words 

 convey but little idea of the dull, deep, lurid hue of 

 the inner part of the standard and wings, or the curi- 

 ous red, dusted with gray, of the exterior. The crowded 

 racemes are borne in the 

 axils of the leaves and 

 are from two to three 

 inches long, sometimes 

 the raceme is compound. 



The standard is the 

 most conspicuous part of 

 the flower, orbicular, 

 spreading, slightly in- 

 curved. At the top is a 

 little pocket into which 

 the recurved and some- 

 times twisted keel thrusts 

 its tip, so that a front 

 view of each individual 

 blossom shows a triangu- 

 lar, cuplike standard and a stiff, whitish keel curving 

 outward and then inward with two flaring wings at 

 its base. 



The pear-shaped tuber at the root is responsible 

 for the plant's names. Evidently it develops tubers 

 at the expense of seeds, for the pod frequently does 

 not form and when formed often fails to reach matu- 

 rity. There is a tradition that the early settlers of 

 this country used these tubers as food — having learned 

 their value from the Indians. 



Leaf of Apios. Apios tuberdsa 



99 



