RAGWEED FAMILY 221 



GOODENIA FAMILY (Goodenmceae) 

 Beach-Berry (Genus Scaevola) 



This low, shrubby plant, which grows in spreading 

 groups on southern sea beaches, is allied to the lobelias, and 

 its interesting flowers show the same peculiarity as theirs 

 in being slit nearly to the base on one side. Through this 

 opening the stamens and pistil protrude. The coroUa 

 is thick in texture, but the lobes are thin on the edges, 

 and are more or less ragged toward the base. The stigma, 

 also, is peculiar. The black, pulpy fruit, half an inch in 

 length and oval in shape, contains one seed. 



Scaevola Plumieri. Flowers usually yellowish or white, 

 with yellow throat, about 1 in. long, from leaf-axils. Co- 

 rolla irregular, deeply 5-lobed, woolly inside. Stamens 5. 

 Shrubby, 1-2 ft. tall. Leaves alternate, many, fleshy, broad- 

 ened upward, entire, 1-3 in. long. Sea beaches. Southern 

 Fla. 



RAGWEED FAMILY {Ambrosiacme) 



Plants of this branch of the composite family have in- 

 conspicuous heads of tiny green or whitish flowers, which 

 were described by an eminent botanist of the last century 

 as "mean and obscure." They grow chiefly as weeds and 

 as unattractive plants of salt marshes and sea beaches. 



The tall annual ragweed, Ambrosia artemisiifolia, with 

 thin, deeply cut leaves, and many terminal racemes of 

 minute green cup-shaped flowering-heads, grows far too 

 frequently in cultivated lands and on roadsides from Can- 

 ada to South America. A. hispida, a perennial with pros- 

 trate basal branches, hairy stems, and thick, deeply cut 

 leaves, grows on the coast. 



Marsh elder, or highwater shrub, Iva frutescens, a shrub 

 four to twelve feet tall, with sharply toothed three-nerved 



