THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 121 



tain several seeds, and are borne on a stalk. The underground 

 ones are pear-shaped, and usually produce but one large seed 

 or pea. The specific name, monoica, that is moneocious 

 refers to the two kinds of flowers and fruits. The plant is a 

 very slender and delicate looking one, the tangled stems clothed 

 with brownish hairs intertwining into extensive beds under 

 the low forest shrubbery. 



To the writer nearly all plants of the pulse family are 

 attractive and this one seems to him charming. It happens 

 that at the time it flowers, in August and September, it has 

 comparatively few companions in its chosen locations. Then, 

 while its habit is graceful, pretty enough indeed to suggest 

 designs for artist or decorator, the slightly pink, pea-shaped 

 flowers in simple or compound racemes are modestly attrac- 

 tive. The leaves are pinnately trifoliate, very thin and easily 

 withering, the leaflets being rhomboidal or lozenge-shaped. 



It is remarkable how the papilionaceous type of flower, so 

 pronounced and so unmistakable, can yet be so infinately varied. 

 In the case of Ampliicarpaca the calyx is nearly equally four- 

 toothed, the corolla has nearly similar keel and wing petals, 

 while the banner is partly folded around them. The stamens 

 are di-adelphous, that is, nine in one set and one standing free. 



Plants of this sort nearly always have some peculiar 

 method of pollination but we cannot recall ever having seen 

 the special plan of Ampliicarpaca described or even suggested. 

 Still, this may be a fault of memory when so much of this sort 

 of thing has been recorded. The plant has been one of my 

 favorites ever since I first saw a sketch of it, by my father, 

 drawn through the text of Bigelow's "Florida Bostiensis," a 

 book so useful to our earlier botanists. My own copy of this 

 work is filled with neat drawings by my father, in pen and ink 

 or pencil, which greatly enhance its value. In my earlier 

 botanizing, I followed the same plan from New Brunswick 



