440 AHCLEPIADACE/fi APOCYNUM 



ASCLEPIAS 



ea, 6-18 inches high, from deep-seated perennial roots: leaves ovate or 

 roundish, 1-4 inches long, abruptly and setaceously callous-mucronate, 

 conspicuously petioled, pale and more or less pubescent beneath : flowers 

 very fragrant, in open cymes : pedicels 2-3 lines long, subulate-bracted at 

 the" base; corolla open-catnpanulate, about 4 lines broad, its tube much 

 longer than the ovate acute lobes of the calyx, its short lobes recurved ; 

 mature follicles 3-5 inches long. In dry open woods, California to Alaska 

 and the eastern States. 



Var. pu mil 11 in Gray Syn. Fl. ii, 82. Low: leaves roundish. Brit. 

 Columbia to California; 



A. cannabinum L. Sp 213. Stems erect or ascending, 1-6 feet high, 

 with ascending branches, glabrous, or sometimes soft-pubescent, leafy to 

 the top: leaves from oval to oblong or even lanceolate, with rounded or 

 subcordate base, Short petioled or sessile 2-6 inches long: cymes erect, 

 densely flowered: corolla greenish- white or slightly flesh-colored its lobes 

 almost erect, the tube not longer than the lanceolate calyx-lobes: follicles 

 slender, 2-3 inches long. Moist meadows, California to Brit. Columbia 

 and the eastern States. 



ORDER LXI ASCLEPIADACE^ Lindl. Nat. Syst. ed. 2, 302. 



Mostly herbs with milky juice, usually opposite leaves with- 

 out stipules, and regular perfect flowers in terminal or pseudo- 

 axillary or sometimes axillary cymes ; often upbellif orm. Calyx 

 free from the ovary or nearly so, imbricated in the bud. Corolla 

 5-merous , convolute, or often nearly valvate in the bud. Stamens 

 5, borne on the tube of the corolla and alternate with its lobes : 

 anthers surrounding the stigma. Pollen in 1 or 2 waxy mass- 

 es, in ours all the pollen in each cell in one mass and attached to 

 the stigmatic disk by the glands that alternate with the anthers. 

 A crown of 5 parts or lobes usually present between the corolla 

 and the mostly monadelphous stamens, and adnate either to the 

 one or the other. Ovary of 2 cells that become follicles, or by 

 abortion, one several to many-seeded follicle. Seeds almost 

 always bearing a long and soft coma. Embryo nearly as long 

 as the seed, in mostly thin, cartilaginous albumen. 



Flowers with a hooded appendage behind each anther. 



1 Asclepias An incurved horn or projecting crest from the cavity of 



each hooded appendage. 



2 Gomphocarpns Hooded appendages without horns or crests. 



1 ASCLEP|AS L. Gen. IH 306. 



Herbs with erect or merely spreading stems from deep and 

 thickened perennial roots, opposite or sometimes verticillate or 

 alternate leaves and terminal and lateral umbellate inflorescence. 

 Calyx 5-parted, commonly bearing some minute processes at the 

 base within. Corolla rotate, 5-parted, dextrorsely valvate-con- 

 volute in the bud. Crown consisting of 5 distinct cucullate or 

 hollowed nectariferous appendages, opposite the anthers, that are 

 involute or complicate and bearing a horn or crest-like process 

 from the back or toward the base within, either sessile or elevat- 



