ERYTHRINA HERBACEA. 

 DWARF CORAL PLANT. 



NATURAL ORDER. LEGUMINOSiE. 



Erythrina HERBACEA, L. — Stems herbaceous, several from a very thick root, prickly, the 

 flowering ones mostly leafless ; leaves long-petioled ; leaflets ovate or somewhat hastate ; 

 vexillum lanceolate, folded ; seeds scarlet. Stems two to four feet high. Racemes one 

 to two feet long. Flowers two inches long. Legume opening by one suture, opposite the 

 seeds. (Chapman's Flora of the Southern United States. See also Wood's Class-Book 

 of Botany.) 



HE natural order of plants to which the ErytJuHna 

 belono^s has had various names c:iven to it. The one 

 in common use is Legimtinosce, derived from legume, which is the 

 kind of seed-vessel the plants of this order generally bear. 

 Dr. Gray defines a legume to be "a seed-vessel of a solitary 

 carpel which normally dehisces only by the ventral suture," 

 that is to say, having a seed-pod which splits open by its front 

 side, when it splits open at all. But there are carpels in other 

 plants besides those of the LegiuninoscE, which split open in this 

 way, and so this order has no exclusive right in nature to the 

 name. Other botanists, Lindley particularly, take one genus as 

 the type around which the order should close, and which should 

 then give its name to the whole ; and for this the botanist named 

 selected Faba, and for the order FabacecE. As nearly all the 

 orders are named in such a plan, there seems no valid objection 

 in the case of the present one ; but leading botanists have not 

 adopted it. PapilionacefE usually divides with Leguminosce the 

 favor of botanists. This is derived from papilio, the Latin name 

 of the butterfly, and is suggested by the fact that the flowers in 

 most cases take on somewhat the form of this insect. But how 



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