vitacejE. (vine family.) 87 
2, AMPELOPSIS, Michx. Virginian Creeper. 
Calyx slightly 5-toothed. Petals concave, spreading, deciduous 
after expansion. No 5-lobed ring around the ovary. — Leaves 
digitate, with 5 leaflets (turning crimson in autumn). Flower- 
clusters cymose. (Name from a/wreXos, a vine , and oyjns, appear¬ 
ance.) 
1. A. qiliuqucfolia, Michx. — A common and familiar shrub¬ 
by vine, climbing extensively, blossoming in July, ripening its small 
blackish berries in Oct. Also called American Ivy. 
Order 36. POLY GAL ACEiE. (Milkwort Family.) 
Plants with a kind of irregular papilionaceous flowers , 
4-8 diadelphous stamens , their anthers opening at the top 
by a pore or chink; the fruit a 2- celled and 2-seeded pod , 
entirely free from the calyx. — Represented by the typical 
genus 
* ' p ° 1 ' GALA, Toum. Milkwort. 
Flower very irregular. Calyx persistent, of 5 sepals, of which 
3 (the upper and the 2 lower) are small and often greenish, while 
the two lateral or inner (called wings) are much larger and col¬ 
ored like the petals. Petals 3, hypogynous, connected with each 
other and with the stamen-tube, the middle (lower) one keel¬ 
shaped and often crested on the hack. Stamens 6 or 8 : their 
filaments united below into a split sheath or into 2 sets, cohering 
more or less with the petals, free above : anthers 1-celled, often 
cup-shaped, opening by a hole or broad chink at the apex. Ovary 
2-celled, with a single anatropous ovule pendulous in each cell: 
style prolonged and curved : stigma various. Fruit a small locu- 
lieidal 2-seeded pod, usually rounded and notched at the apex, 
much flattened contrary to the very narrow partition. Seeds with 
a caruncle, or variously shaped appendage at the hilum. Embryo 
large, with flat and broad cotyledons, surrounded by albumen. — 
Bitter plants (low herbs in temperate regions) with simple entire 
leaves, often dotted, and no stipules : sometimes bearing concealed 
fertile flowers also next the ground. (An old name from no\vs, 
much, and ydAn, milk, from a fancied property of its increasing 
this secretion.) 
