GELSEMIUM SEMPERVIRENS. 



CAROLINA JASMINE, OR YELLOW JESSAMINE. 



NATURAL ORDER, RUBIACE/E (according to Chapman, in Flora of Southern States, 

 LOGANIACErE, according to Lindley, De Candolle, Asa Gray, and other authors). 



Gelsemium SEMPERVIRENS, Aiton. — Flowcrs dimorphous; calyx five-parted, persistent; 

 corolla funnel-shaped, five-lobed, the lobes rounded, emarginate, spreading, quincuncial in 

 the bud, the sinuses impressed; stamens five, inserted near the base of the corolla; anthers 

 oblong -sagittate, extrorse; styles united, filiform, partly persistent; stigmas four, linear, 

 spreading ; capsule oblong, two-celled, compressed, opening septicidally to the middle, 

 and loculicidally at the apex, each valve tipped with the persistent base of the styles; 

 seeds several, oval, flat, winged, obliquely imbricated in two rows; stem twining, woody; 

 leaves opposite, lanceolate or ovate, short petioled, with minute stipules, evergreen. 

 (Partly froni Chapman's Flora of the Southern United States. See also Gray's Manual of 

 the Botany of the Northern United States.) 



HIS is a distinctively American plant. The genus con- 

 sists of only this single species, and it has no very close 

 relations outside of the American continent. Willdenow re- 

 garded it as a species of Big7ionia, or Trumpet-flower. With- 

 out going into details, however, the student would at once see it 

 did not belong to the Bignoniaceous order by the four stigmas, 

 as all Bignoniaceous plants have the single style, terminated by 

 two thin stigmatic plates, which are sensitive, closing slowly 

 when touched. The nearest allies to the Gelsemium are the 

 Spigelia, a very pretty, hardy, herbaceous plant, but of poisonous 

 qualities ; and two less known genera, Polypremttm and Mltre- 

 ola. These form a little tribe of exclusives, all of this continent. 

 Our plant is known in the Southern States as " Yellow Jessa- 

 mine," according to Gray and Chapman, but all those whom we 

 have heard speak of it call it " Carolina Jasmine." It is a woody 

 twiner, with evergreen, willow-like leaves, rambling over bushes 

 and low shrubs, and often ascending trees of considerable size, 



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