Minnesota Plant Life. 



297 



Kentucky coffee-trees. The Kentucky coffee-tree is a large 

 forest tree indigenous, but somewhat infrequent, in the southern 

 part of the state. It is especially abundant near Mankato, in 

 Nicollet county. The leaves are doubly pinnate and the flow- 

 ers are produced in racemes and are regular in appearance. 

 Some of them are staminate, others pistillate, while still others 

 are provided with both stamens and pistils. The pod when 

 fully grown is from five to ten inches long and two inches wide, 

 somewhat flattened, of a dark brown color, with several seeds. 

 These pods hang unopened on the branches throughout the 

 winter. In the following spring they split along the edges and 

 reveal the large brown beans, which are remarkable for their 

 exceedingly hard coats, their albumen and the orange-colored 

 seed-leaves of the embryo. The wood of the tree is light brown 

 tinted with red and of some value in cabinet-making. 'J'he 

 cofTee-trees select rich deep woods as their habitat, and are 

 beautiful forms under cultivation. They cannot be mistaken 

 for any other of the native Minnesota varieties, since their large, 

 thick pods are altogether distinctive. 



Sennas. The sennas are also known as sensitive peas or 

 wild sensitive-plants. The three varieties wdiich grow in Min- 

 nesota produce yellow flowers, almost regular, — that is, rose- 

 like and not two-sided in appearance. The American senna 

 has curved, rather smooth pods, three to four inches in length. 

 The large-flowered sensitive pea has for the most part straight 

 and slightly hairy pods, while the small-flowered has shorter 

 straight pods and flowers considerably less than half the size 

 of the other. The desmanthus is one of the pod-bearing plants 

 in which the pods are clustered together in heads. It is a 

 small herb with doubly pinnate, fern-like leaves, regular flowers 

 aggregated in spherical heads, and short curved pods clustered 

 together in dense heads, each pod containing from two to five 

 seeds. These plants would not be mistaken for clovers, in 

 which the pods are also clustered, on account of their fern-like 

 leaves and regular flowers. Besides, the pods are very much 

 larger. 



Of the pulses, with l)utterfly-shaped flowers, there are be- 

 tween 75 and 80 species in the state, including the false indigos, 

 the wild peanuts and wild beans, the vetches, prairie clovers 



