Polygala. POLYGALACE.E. 453 



* * Flowers of two kinds, the showy ones few, large (6 to 9 lines long), solitary in the 

 upper axils or appearing terminal : keel with a conspicuous plumose crest : species of the 

 Atlantic Slope, extending westward to Winnipeg. 



P. paucifolia, Willd. (Fringed Polygala, Flowering Wintergreen.) Stems 

 several from a slender elongating rhizome, erect, 3 to 6 inches or more in height ; lower 

 leaves small and bractlike ; tlie uppermost clustered at the summit of tlie stem, cuneate at 

 the petiolate base, rounded and apiculate, obtuse or acutish at the apex, 6 to 20 lines in 

 length, half or two thirds as broad, glabrous or puberulent : wings and petals rose-colored 

 varying to white : obcordate glabrous capsule nearly orbicular in outline, 4 lines in dia- 

 meter : cleistogamous flowers produced at or near the ends of slender several-bracted 

 branches from the rhizome or bases of the erect stems. — Spec. iii. 880; Barton, Fl. N. A. ii. 

 59, t. 56, f. 1 ; Hook. Bot. Mag. t. 2852, & Fl. Bor.-Am. i. 86 ; Beck, Bot. 46, with var. alha, 

 Eights, the white-flowered form ; Gray, Gen. 111. ii. 224, t. 184 ; Wheelock, 1. c. 141. P.uni- 

 flora, Michx. Fl. ii. 53. P. purpurea, Ait. f. Kew. ed. 2, iv. 244. Tridisperma fjrandijlora, 

 Eaf. Speech, i. 117. — Cool sphagnum bogs, &c., Anticosti (ace. to Macoun), New Bruns- 

 wick, New England, and the Middle Atlantic States, southward in the uplands to Georgia, 

 northwestward along the Great Lakes to Winnipeg, the plains of the Saskatchewan, 

 Bourgeau (? ace. to Macoun), and Minnesota. 



§ 4. Orthopolygala, Choclat, 1. c. 120. Unarmed herbs or undershrubs 

 with alternate, opposite, or verticillate leaves, persistent calyx, and crested keel. 



* Oblong capsule oblique at the end, and winged (or wing-margined) upon one edge (wing 

 sometimes inconspicuous or almost obsolete in P. scoparia) : suffrutescent glabrous per- 

 ennials of the Southwest with erect alternate linear-oblong acute or even pungent leaves 

 and small whitish spicate-racemose flowers : stigma bilabiate, the upper lobe minutely 

 penicillate. 



P. hemipterocarpa, Gray. Stems l to several, erect, a foot or two high, sharply 

 furrowed-angulate, subsimple : leaves half inch to inch in length, carinate : flowers soon 

 spreading or deflexed in elongated terminal rather loose secuud racemes : wings elliptic- 

 ovate, cuneate at the base, rounded at the apex, scarcely equalling the capsule ; wing of the 

 capsule broad, white, crenulate or crisped ; seed long and slender, soft-villous, and with a 

 caruncle a third to more than half its length. — PI. Wright, ii. 31 ; Torr. Bot. Mex. Bound. 

 49; Wheelock, 1. c. 138; Chodat, 1. c. 281, t. 26, f. 1-2 (incl. var. bracteata). — Mountains, 

 W. Texas? (see Wheelock, 1. c.) ; New Mexico, Wright; Arizona, Lemmon, Pringle. 



P. scoparia, HBK. Of lower growth, 6 to 15 inches high, usually much branched from 

 the ligneous base ; stems or branches slender, flexuous, leafy : leaves 4 to 6 lines long, pun- 

 gent : capsule with a very narrow wing-margin on one edge : otherwise much like the last. 

 — Nov. Gen. & Spec. v. 399 ; Gray, PI. Wright, i. 38, ii. 30, incl. var. multicaidis ; Seem. 

 Bot. Herald. 269; Wheelock, 1. c. 137 ; Chodat, 1. c. 282, t. 26, f. 3-5. IP. scoparwides, 

 Chodat, 1. c. 284, t. 26, f. 6, 7 (differences probably formal). — Mountains and foot-hills, 

 Central and W. Texas to Arizona. (Mex.) 



* * Capsule wingless. 



-t— Sepals not conspicuously decurrent upon the pedicels : flowers purple, roseate, white, or 

 cream-color : wings obtuse or obtusish except in P. Hookerl, P. brevi/olia, and P. cruciata. 



++ Perennials (except P. alba, P. Boijkini, and P. prcetervisa) with stems (in well devel- 

 oped plants) always several to many from an often lignescent root or stock. 



= Flowers of two kinds, namely, small green cleistogene very fertile ones commonly borne 

 on pale ba.sal more or less buried shoots, and larger roseate or white less fertile ones in 

 rather loose terminal racemes : leaves alternate. 



P. pol^gama, Walt. Stems angled, leafy, 4 inches to a foot or more in height: leaves 

 elliptic-oblong to linear, obtuse but often mucronulate at the apex, cuneate at base, on the 

 slender fertile basal shoots reduced to small scales : larger flowers rose-colored to almost 

 violet-purple: pedicels slender, soon horizontal and at length recurved, considerably exceed- 

 ing the deciduous bractlets : wings oval, narrowed at base : capsule broadly oblong-ovate ; 

 seed hairy or subglabrous, with conspicuous bilobed loosely cellular caruncle three fourths 



