POLYGONUM POLYGONACE 585 
RU MEX ; 
leaves: calyx nearly a line long, sessile, 5-cleft. In moist places, eastern 
Washington to southern Oregon and California. 
SuspeENus vr Trytarta Meisn. Monog. 62. * Annual or peren- 
nial more or less twining plants with usually cordate or truncate 
leaves. Ocreae membranaceous, funnelform, oblique, naked at 
the summit. Flowers in axillary or terminal clusters or racemes. 
Calyx 5-parted, the outer segments keeled or winged. Stamens 8. 
Style 3-parted or wanting. Achenes triquetrous. Cotyledons 
accum bent. | 
P. convotvuLus L. Sp. 364. Annual: Glabrous: stem slender prostrate 
or twining, I-4 feet long, branched: leaves broadly to narrowly ovate or ov- 
ate-sagittate, 1-3 inches long, acuminate, somewhat undulate and crisped, 
on slender petioles: flowers in small axillary clusters and terminal racemes 
on slender reflexed pedicels: calyx green or whitish, about 2 lines long, the 
segments oblong, obtuse, closely investing the triquetrous achene. Com- 
mon in cultivated fields and gardens. Naturalized from Europe. 
P, pumeEtToRuM L. Sp. ed. 2, 522. Perennial: bright green and glabrous 
throughout: stems weak and slender, extensively twining 2-20 feet long: 
leaves ovate-cordate, 1-4 inches long, acuminate, petioled or nearly sessile: 
flowers in axillary racemes 2 inches long: calyx yellowish-green, drooping, 
nearly 3 lines long. Said to growin our region but I have not seen it. 
Missouri to Tennessee and Europe. 
6 RUMEX L. Sp. 333. 
Coarse perennial, biennial or annual herbs, some tropical spe- 
cies shrubs or trees, with more or less acid juice, alternate leaves 
with sheathing stipules and small flowers fascicled or verticillate 
in paniculate racemes. Flowers perfect, polygamons or dicecious, 
on jointed pedicels. Calyx 5-parted or of 6 distinct sepals 
the outer 3 herbaceous, spreading or reflexed, the inner larger 
and more or less colored, usually becoming enlarged’and reticulat- 
ed in fruit, appressed to the 3-angled achene. Stamens 6: filaments 
very short. Style 3-parted, with peltate tufted stigma. Embryo 
curved or nearly straight, borne in one of the faces of the achene. 
§ 1 AcrTosELLA Trelease Rev. Rum. 76. Dicecious perenni- 
als with acid juice. Outer segments of the calyx without dorsal 
callosities, not reticulated nor larger than the achene. 
R. AcreTOSELLA L. Sp. 338. (Sorreut.) Glabrous throughout stems 
slender, 6-12 inches high, tufted, propagating by creeping rootstocks: leaves 
oblanceolate, acute, the lower mostly bastate with a large decurrent, rarely 
toothed auricle on each side, petioled, 2-5 inches long, the upper gradually 
reduced and entire: panicle more or less compound, usually reddish, the 
filiform ascending branches, leafless: pedicels capillary, articulated at 
the summit: flowers about a line long. Common in fields and waste pl a- 
ces throughout most of North America and Europe. 
§ 2 Acretosa Campd. Monog. Rumex, Diccious perennials, 
the leaves with acid juice. Inflorescence with slender leafles 
branches. Inner segments of the calyx rather finely reticulated 
becoming round-cordate and much; larger than the achene. 
R. paucifolius Nutt. Mss. Watson Bot. King, 314. Stems somewha 
