150 CLASS DIADELPHIA. 



narrow leaves, of a pale and delicate green ; from the 

 bosom of these arises a low scape, bearing a 1-sided 

 or secund, simple raceme of white, singular looking, 

 pendulous flowers. A recently discovered species, 

 very similar in many respects, but found in a northern 

 range, from the forests of Massachusetts to Canada, 

 and so called C. canadensis, differs essentially from 

 the preceding in producing spherically tuberous roots; 

 finer and narrower leaves ; also white flowers with 

 obtuse spurs, and simple racemes. This plant I have 

 met with in the shady woods a few miles from Bel- 

 lows' Falls. 



In the order Octanoria is arranged the genus 

 Polygala, or Milk-wort, forming the type of the natur- 

 al family, Poeygale/E. The United States contain 

 nearly 20 species, all of them low and herbaceous, 

 having small leaves, and cylindric heads or spikes of 

 flowers of various colors, as red, white, and more 

 rarely, yellow and blue. At the Cape of Good Hope 

 there are several very elegant shrubby species, gener- 

 ally with reddish purple (lowers. All of them agree 

 in producing a 5-leavcd, irregular, persistent calyx, 

 of which 2 of the leaflets are wing-shaped and colored, 

 the 5th resembling the keel of the Leguminoste, and 

 often terminated with a villous tuft or crest. The cap- 

 sule is obcordate, 2-celled, and 2-valved. The seeds 

 few and pubescent. One of the most useful species 

 of the genus is the 1 J . senega, or Seneka Snakeroot, 

 with thickish tortuous roots, sending up a cluster of 

 simple smooth stems, with many alternate, ovate, lan- 

 ceolate leaves, and spiked racemes; the calycine 

 wings are white and orbicular, and the capsules ellipti- 

 cal. But the paucifoliu, or few-leaved, is the most 

 elegant and highly colored species in the United 

 States. It forms considerable beds or colonies in the 

 • vicinity of Fir woods, flowering in May and June, and 



