CLASS DIADELPHIA. 151 



is particularly abundant in New England and Canada. 

 The steins are simple, and only 3 or 4 inches high, 

 bearing a tuft of broadish ovate leaves, from amongst 

 which arise 3 or 4 large and beautiful purple flowers, 

 with a conspicuous crest at the extremity of the lower 

 keeled petal, but at the root will be found, as in the 

 species called rubella or polygama, a few apterous 

 fertile (lowers. In the middle and southern states, in 

 the swamps of the pine barrens, may frequently be 

 seen, in flower from June to October, the P. lutca, 

 remarkable for its beautiful cylindric heads of orange 

 colored flowers ; in this the lower leaves are spathu- 

 late, the upper ones lanceolate ; the calycine wings 

 are ovate and mucronate, and the bractes shorter than 

 the flowers. Our most common species, however, is 

 the P. purpurea, formerly confounded with the P. san- 

 guined, a much rarer species. In this the stem is so 

 branched that the flowers all come to the same sum- 

 mit, so as almost to form a corymb ; the leaves are 

 alternate, rather numerous, and oblong-linear ; the 

 spikes cylindric, oblong, obtuse ; the flowers beardless; 

 the calycine wings, cordate-ovate, twice as long as 

 the capsule. But it is unnecessary to adduce any 

 more species, they are common in every swamp, wood, 

 and meadow. 



The order Decandria embraces exclusively the 

 natural order of the Leguminosje, and is divisible in- 

 to 2 principal sections ; in the first are comprehended 

 the monadelphous genera, or those, in which the fila- 

 ments are all connected into a tube ; and the first ge- 

 nus which presents itself in this division, is one of 

 great singularity, called Amorpha, from its remarkable 

 defect of petals, the corolla consisting of nothing more 

 than an ovate, concave vexillum ; the wings and keel 

 being entirely wanting. The calyx is partly campan- 

 ulate, and 5-cleft. The legume 1 or 2-seeded, fal- 



