ASCLEPI ADAGES. 28 1 



ASCLEPIADACE/E. 



Herbs usually climbing, with milky juice, and opposite 

 simple often cordate leaves. Flowers quite regular; 

 of five calyx-points, five corolla-lobes, five stamens, 

 two separate carpels with short styles connected only by 

 the large stylar-head, and for fruit two follicles filled with 

 flat oval seeds, each with a dense tuft of long white hairs. 

 But styles very short and completely encased by the 

 anthers which have very short filaments and join each 

 other round it. Anther lobes of a stamen separated by a 

 broad connective on the back of which, or on the base of 

 the corolla, are developed swellings, collectively termed 

 the corona. Pollen in each anther-cell or pollen-sac, 

 aggregated into one (or occasionally two) lump, called a 

 polUnium, and the polliniums of two adjacent-anther- 

 lobes (of different anthers) connected, at the top in all our 

 species, by a A-shaped piece usually black, termed the 

 translator or gland. 



Species i,ooo chiefly in the tropics. 



Cross-pollination is effected by insects crawling over the flower and 

 dragging a leg through the crevice between two adjacent anther-cells and 

 removing the two polliniums connected by the A-shaped translator which fits 

 astride the leg. 



r Corolla closed, longer than broad, with inflated crown 

 a ^ pierced by five openings . . . /. 284. ceropegia. 



(. Corolla open, flat ^ 



r Flowers yellowish brown : corona adnate to corolla . . 



b ^ A 281. GYMNEMA. 



I Flowers green : corona attached to the anthers . . . c 

 petals valvate : corona a thick flat waxy five-rayed star. 



^ , . A 283. HOYA. 



Petals overlappmg . j 



Flowers in loose irregular racemes . /. 282. tylophora. 





GYMNEMA. f.b.i. 95 xxx. 



Herbaceous or woody slender twining plants with 

 opposite leaves and axillary peduncled umbels (or 



