102 LINACE.E. (FLAX FAMILY. J 



containing a large embryo with plano-convex cotyledons. Herbs, with tough 

 fibrous bark, simple and sessile entire leaves (alternate or often opposite), with- 

 out stipules, but often with glands in their place, and with corymbose or pani- 

 cled flowers. Corolla usually ephemeral. (The classical name of the Flax.) 

 * Flowers rather small, yellow ; glabrous, 1-2 high. 



1. L. Virginimim, L. Stem erect from the base and with the corym- 

 bose spreading or recurving branches terete and even; no stipular glands; 

 leaves oblong or lanceolate, or the lower spatulate and often opposite ; flowers 

 scattered, small (barely 3" long) ; sepals ovate, pointed, smooth-edged or 

 nearly so, equalling the depressed 1 0-celled pod ; styles distinct. Dry woods ; 

 common. Root apparently annual; but the plant propagates by suckers 

 from the base of the stem. 



L. FLORIDANUM, Trelease, of rather stricter habit and the pods broadly 

 ovate and obtuse, appears to have been found in S. 111. 



2. L. stri&tum, Walt. Stems gregarious, erect or ascending from a 

 creeping or decumbent base, slightly viscid, and with the mostly racemose 

 ehort branches striate with about 4 sharp wing-like angles decurrent from the 

 leaves ; these broader than in the last, and mostly oblong, usually with all the 

 lower ones opposite ; flowers more crowded ; sepals scarcely equalling the very 

 small subglobose brownish pod; otherwise nearly as n. 1. Wet or boggy 

 grounds, E. Mass, to Lakes Ontario and Huron, 111., and southward. 



3. L. SUlc&tum, TJiddell. Stem strictly erect from an annual root, and 

 with the upright or ascending branches wing-angled or grooved; leaves al- 

 ternate, linear, acute, the upper subulate and glandular-serrulate ; a pair of 

 dark glands in place of stipules ; sepals ovate-lanceolate and sharp-pointed, 

 strongly 3-nerved and with rough-bristly-glandular margins, scarcely longer 

 than the ovoid-globose incompletely 10-celled pod; styles united almost to the 

 middle. Dry soils, E. Mass, to Minn., and south west ward. Flowers and 

 pods twice as large as in the preceding. 



4. L. rigidum, Pursh. Glaucous, sometimes slightly puberulent, often 

 low and cespitose, the rigid branches angled , leaves narrow, erect, usually 

 with stipular glands ; flowers large ; sepals lanceolate, glandular-serrulate ; 

 styles united ; capsule ovoid, 5-valved. Minn, to Kan., and southward. 



* * Flowers large, blue. 



5. L. perenne, L., var. Lewisii, Eat. & Wright. Perennial, glabrous 

 and glaucous, 1-3 high ; leaves linear, acute ; flowers rather few on long 

 peduncles ; sepals obtuse or acutish, not glandular-serrulate ; styles distinct ; 



I pod ovate. Minn, to Neb., and westward. (Eu., Asia.) 



L. usiTATfssiMUM, L. (COMMON FLAX.) Annual ; stem corymbosely 

 branched at top; sepals acute, ciliate. Occasionally spontaneous in fields. 

 (Adv. from Eu.) 



ORDER 23. GERANIACE^E. (GERANIUM FAMILY.) 



Plants (chiefly herbs') with perfect and generally symmetrical hyporjynnus 

 flowers ; the stamens, counting sterile filaments, as many or commonly twice 

 as many, and the lobes or cells (1 -few-ovuled) of the. ovary as many, as 

 the sepals, the axis of the dry fruit persisting. Seeds without albumen 



