RUBIACEA, SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. 27 
primary veins nearly parallel with the sides of the leaf, and stout grooved glabrous or puberulous 
petioles from one half to three quarters of an inch in length. The stipules are minute, nearly triangu- 
lar, deciduous, or persistent during the winter. The flower-heads are panicled and from an inch to an 
inch and a half in diameter. The creamy white flowers, which open from the middle of May in Florida 
and Texas to the middle of August in the Atlantic states and Canada, and on the mountains of 
California, are very fragrant. 
lobes, and. is slightly villose toward the base. 
inner face, and glandular or eglandular. 
pollen before the flowers open.’ 
stigma. 
The calyx is usually four but occasionally five-lobed, with short rounded 
The corolla is tubular funnel-form, puberulous on the 
The anthers are nearly sessile, included, and discharge their 
The disk is thin and obscure, and the style is elongated, with an entire 
The heads of fruit, which ripen late in the autumn, are from five eighths to three quarters of 
an inch in diameter, green tinged with red, and ultimately dark red-brown. 
Cephalanthus occidentalis grows in swamps and the low wet borders of ponds and streams, and 
ranges from New Brunswick to Ontario” and eastern Nebraska ® and Kansas,’ and southward to Florida, 
Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona. 
and. Cuba.’ 
It is also widely distributed in California,’ and grows in Mexico® 
The bark of Cephalanthus occidentalis contains tannin, and, although its medical virtues are 
problematical, it has been often used in the treatment of fevers * and in homeopathic practice. 
The earliest account of Cephalanthus occidentalis was published by Plukenet in 1691. Accord- 
ing to Aiton it was cultivated in England by Philip Miller in 1735." 
1 Cross fertilization of the flowers of Cephalanth identalis is 
7, “ 
secured by the early maturity of the anthers. These discharge 
their pollen before the buds open in a conical mass on the imma- 
ture stigma, which later is carried by the lengthening of the style 
to a point high above the flowers where it must come in contact 
with insects which are attracted in great numbers to the flower- 
heads by their fragrance and by the abundant nectar in the bottom 
of the corollas, and which carry the pollen masses from the imma- 
ture stigma of one flower to the mature stigma of another. (See 
Robertson, Bot. Gazette, xvi. 65.— Blanchan, Nature’s Garden, 
251, t.) 
Meehan believed that the early discharge of the pollen on to the 
stigma resulted in self-fertilization, but his own observations do 
not appear to support his theory, as he found that only one in five 
flowers of a head were fertilized, a fact which Robertson takes 
as presumptive evidence against self-fertilization. (See Meehan, 
Proc. Phil. Acad. 1887, 327 [Contributions to the Life History of 
Plants].) 
ore her, Flore Canadi i, 291. — Brunet, Cat. Vég. Lig. 
Can. 34. — Macoun, Cat. Can. Pl. 199. 
3 Bessey, Bull. Exper. Stat. Nebraska, iv. art. iv. 22. 
4 Hitchcock, Fl. Kansas, plate xvi. 
5 Gray, Brewer § Watson Bot. Cal. i. 282, — Eastwood, Bull. 
Sierra Club, iv. 58. 
6 Hemsley, Bot. Biol. Am. Cent. ii. 6. 
In southern Arizona and in Mexico the leaves of Cephalanthus 
are often much narrower than those usually produced 
by northern plants, although the leaves vary greatly everywhere on 
different individuals. The narrow-leaved Mexican form is 
Cephalanth identalis, var. salicifolius, Gray, Syn. Fl. N. Am. 
i. pt. ii. 29 (1884). 
Cephalanthus salicifolius, Humboldt & Bonpland, Pl. cere il. 
63, t. 98 (1809). — Humboldt, Bonpland & Kunth, Nov. Gen. et 
Spec. iii. 381. — Kunth, Syn. Pl. Zquin, iii. 39.—De Candolle, 
Prodr. iii. 589. — Dietrich, Syn. i. 452. — Hemsley, J. c. 
7 Grisebach, Cat. Pl. Cuba, 139. 
8 Rafinesque, Med. Fl. 100, t. 20. — Griffith. Med. Bot. 356. — 
Johnson, Man. Med. Bot. N. Am. 168.— U. S. Dispens. ed. 16, 
1750. — Parke, Davis & Co., Organic Mat. Med. 37. 
9 Millspaugh, Am. Med. Pl. in Homeopathic Remedies, i. 76, 
t. 76. 
10 Arbor Americana triphylla, fructu Platani quodammodo cemulante, 
Plukenet, Phyt. t. 77, £.4; Almagest. Bot. 47. 
Scabiosa dendroides Americana, ternis foliis circa caulem ambien- 
tibus, floribus ochroleucis, Plunkenet, Almagest. Bot. 336. 
Platanocephalus tini foliis ex adverso ternis, Vaillant, ike Acad. 
Sci. Paris, 1722, 191. 
Cephalanthus foliis ternis, Linneus, Hort. Cliff. 73. — Royen, Fl. 
Leyd. Prodr. 187. 
Cephalanthus foliis oppositis & ternis, Clayton, Fl. Virgin. 15. 
Cephalanthus, Duhamel, Traité des Arbres, i. 145. 
ll Hort. Kew. i. 182. — Loudon, Arb. Brit. ii. 1061, £. 828, 829. 
