PEA FAMILY (PULSE FAMILY) 103 



Exceptions to usual form: 



Amorpha wings and keel lacking 



Erythrina wings and keel very short 



Petalostemum and Kuhnistera. . .lowers of 



5 nearly similar petals alternating with 



5 stamens. 



"If I should describe unto you all the kindes of Pulse, I should 

 unfold a little world of varieties therein, more known and 

 found out in these dayes than at any time before." 



From John Pabkinson's Paradise in SolCy 1656. 



Ornamental woods, dyestuffs, foods, and medicines 

 are yielded by this large and important family of plants, 

 and our interesting predecessors of only a few centuries 

 ago found another and quite different use for the leaves 

 of a certain species — Trifolium pratense, to be exact — 

 which were believed to be "very noisome to witches." They 

 also recorded that melilot of this family would "strengthen 

 the Memory/' and "comfort the Head and Brains." And 

 perhaps in ascribing to the common plants about them 

 influences so beneficial they were not so far wrong as it 

 may appear, for they touched a fundamental truth, in 

 spite of their bizarre belief. 



Our Florida plants of this family are very numerous, 

 and some are very ornamental. The Cherokee bean is 

 as striking as the Cherokee rose, and the flowers of our 

 beautiful butterfly pea are larger than those of the culti- 

 vated sweet peas. 



Cross-pollination may be observed in different species 

 where the stamens are hidden within the folded keel until 

 an insect, alighting on the flower, pushes the keel down 

 by its slight weight, releasing the stamens which scatter 

 their pollen, some of it remaining on the insect until it is 

 brushed off on the protruding stigma of the next flower 



visited. 



The pea-shaped flowers are a distinguishing character- 

 istic by which plants of this family are easily recognized, 

 as, with few exceptions, their form is similar to that of the 



