OF THE CLASS PENTANDRIA. 77 



one stigma also is visible, though beneath it will be 

 found 2 germs united in a common base, which, at 

 length, become 2 soft, conic capsules, called folli- 

 cles, each of which, according to the nature of that 

 very simple pericarp, consists of only one cell and one 

 valve folded together concavely, and opening length- 

 wise by a suture. The seeds, flat, and imbricated or 

 tiled over each other, and terminated by a coma or 

 long silky crown, are attached to a depending furrow- 

 ed receptacle, the coma being the umbilical cord or 

 attaching string of the seed, and at length, its buoyant 

 crown ready to waft or launch it in the air, and carry 

 it almost to any distance, as a new germ of veg- 

 etable colonization. The larger flowered species of 

 Asclepias, such as the A. syriaca or Silk-weed, and 

 A. tuberosa or Butterfly-weed, act also as catch-flies, 

 the insects getting entangled by the feet in the chinks 

 of the contiguous antheroid cells, and remain prisoners 

 till they perish with hunger and fatigue. To suppose 

 these plants peculiarly possessed of a carnivorous ap- 

 petite, instead of a structure accidentally fatal to some 

 insects, as in the case also of so many glutinous plants 

 and flowers, is devoid of all evidence, and only one 

 of those unsupported interpretations of the operations 

 of nature which would limit every idea to our con- 

 tracted views of general utility. More than 20 spe- 

 cies of Asclepias are indigenous to the United States, 

 They have very generally a milky sap, which, like that 

 of the Apocynum, partakes, when inspissated, of the na- 

 ture of gum-elastic. Some of the species are among om 

 most common productions, particularly the red-flow- 

 ered swamp species, A. incarnata, and the A. syriaca. 

 or common Silk-weed, growing so abundantly along 

 the rich margins of streams. The silky down of the 

 seed of this last species has been manufactured, and 

 the fibres of the stem afford a durable flax, The A 

 7* 



