NAT. ORDER. 

 Asdcpiadeff, 



ASCLEPIAS TUBEROSA. WHITE, OR PLEURISY-ROOT. 



Cktss XIII. Pextandria. Orde,r II. Digynia. 



Gen. Char. CaUjx, five-cleft. Corolla, monopetalous, five-parted. 

 Stamens, five. Seeds, numerous. 



Spe. Char. Nectaries, fi^■e, contorted, ovate, concave, putting forth 

 a little horn. 



The genus to which this superb plant belongs, takes its name 

 from .'Esculapias, the god of medicine. It contains an assemblage 

 of some of the most beautiful productionsof the vegetable kingdom ; 

 and the Asclepias tabcrosa is, perhaps, one of the most elegant plants 

 of our country. 



The j'oot is large, and somewhat irregularly tuberous, sending 

 up many erect, and sometimes decumbent hairy stems, branching at 

 the top; the stems are round, very hairy, and of a reddish color; 

 the leaves are scattered, and supported on petioles, little more than 

 the eighth of an inch in length, varying in being lanceolate-oval, 

 long-oval, lanceolate, and, in the variety decumbens, linear-lanceo- 

 late, and repand on the margin : they are of a deep rich green above, 

 much paler xmderneath, and very hairy ; the umbels are terminal, 

 and somewhat in the form of a corymb ; in the variety they are 

 lateral ; the bracteal involucre is composed of numerous narrow- 

 linear, nearly subulate membranaceous leaves, of a salmon color ; 

 the floiccrs are situated in terminal corymbose umbels, and are of a 

 brilliant orange red color ; the fruit is a long, narrow, roundish pod, 

 pointed at each end ; and the seeds, like the rest of the genus, are 



Vol. iii— 92. 



