436 i'HYTOLACCACE^. (POKEWEED FAMILY.) 



1. PHYTOLACCA, Tourn. Pokeweed. 



Calyx of 5 rounded and petal-like sepals. Stamens 5-30. Ovary of 5- 12 

 carpels, united in a ring, with as many short separate styles, in fruit forming 

 a depressed-globose 5-12-celled berry, with a single vertical seed in each cell. 

 Embryo curved in a ring around the albumen. — Tall and stout perennial 

 lerbs, with large petioled leaves, and terminal racemes which become lateral 

 and opposite the leaves. (Name compounded of cpvjSv, plant, and the French 

 lac, lake, in allusion to the crimson coloring matter which the berries yield.) 



1. P. decandra, L. (Commox Poke or Score, Garget. Pigeon- 

 Berry.) Stamens and styles 10. — Low grouuds. July -Sept. — A smooth 

 plant, with a rather unpleasant odor, and a very large poisonouB root, often 

 4-6' in diameter, sending up stout stalks at length 6-9° high ; calyx white; 

 ovary green ; berries in long racemes, dark-purple and tilled with crimson juice, 

 ripe in autumn. 



Order 89. POLYGONACE^. (Buckwheat Family.) 



Herbs, with alternate erdire leaves, and stipules in the form of sheaths 

 (ocrefe, these sometimes obsolete) above the swollen joints of the stem; the 

 flowers mostly perfect, with a more or less persistent calyx, a 1-celled ovary 

 bearing 2 or 3 styles or stigmas, and a single erect orthotropous seed. 

 Fruit usually an achene, compressed or 3-4-angle(l or -winged. Em- 

 brvo curved or straightish, on the outside of the albumen, or rarely in 

 its centre. Stamens 4-12, inserted on the base of the 3 - 6-clef t calyx. 

 (fJuice often acrid, sometimes agreeably acid, as in Sorrel ; the roots, as 

 in Khubarb, sometimes cathartic.) 



* Flowers involucrate ; stamens 9 ; stipules none. 



1. £riogonuiii' Involucre several-flowered, with flowers exserted. Calyx 6-cleft. 



* « Flowers without involucre ; stamens 4 to 8. 



•*- ytipular sheaths manifest ; ovule erect from the base of the cell. 



++ Sepals 4 or 6, the outer row reflexed, the inner erect and enlarging in fruit. 



2. Oxyria. Sepals 4. Stigmas 2. Achene orbicular-winged. Leaves renifonn. 



3. Rumex. Sepals 6. Stigmas 3, Achene 3-angled. 



** *+ Sepals 5 (sometimes 4), equal and erect in fruit. Achene triangular or lenticular. 



4. Polygonum. Embryo slender, curved around one side of the albumen. Pedicels 



mostly fascicled. 



5. Fasopyrum. Embryo in the albumen, its very broad cotyledons twisted-plaited. 



'6. Polygoiiella. Embryo slender, nearly straight. Pedicels solitary. Leaves jointed at 



base. 



-^ H- Stipules obsolete; oviile hanging from the apex of a slender stalk. 

 7 Brunnichia. Calyx 5-parted, in fruit with a wing decurrent on the pedicel. Tendril 



climber. 



1. ERIOGONUM, Michx. 



Flowers perfect, iuvolucrate ; involucre 4 - 8-toothed or lobed, usually many- 

 flowered ; the more or less exserted pedicels intermixed with narrow scarious 

 bracts. Calyx 6-parted or -cleft, colored, persistent about the achene. Sta- 

 mens 9, upon the base of the calyx. Styles 3 ; stigmas capitate. Achene 



