. 

 Cycladenia. APOCYNACEJS. 473 



often bearing a tuft of down (a coma). Embryo large and straight, in sparing 

 albumen. 



A large family in the warmer regions, sparingly represented in the temperate zones, only two 

 small genera reaching California, one of them peculiar to it. 



1. Apocynum. Stamens on the base of the campanulate corolla : little scales of the latter 

 opposite the lobes. Glands of disk 5. 



2. Cycladenia. Stamens on the tube of the short- funnelform corolla, which bears minute 

 appendages alternate with the lobes. Disk a ring or cup. 



1. APOCYNUM, Tourn. DOGBANE. INDIAN HEMP. 



Calyx 5-parted ; its short tube coherent by the disk with the base of the ovaries. 

 Corolla campanulate, 5-cleft, toward the base bearing a triangular scale-like appen- 

 dage opposite each lobe. Stamens borne on the base of the corolla : filaments very 

 short : anthers of firm texture, sagittate, conniving around the solid stigma, to a 

 ring of which the broad summit of the connective adheres. Proper style none. 

 Ovaries 2, ovoid, in fruit forming a pair of long and slender follicles. Glands 5 

 around the base of the ovaries. Seeds numerous, bearing a long tuft of silky down. 

 Perennial herbs (N. American, and one in the Old World) ; with branching 

 stems, an extremely tough fibrous bark (used by the Indians for cordage), mucro- 

 nate-tipped leaves, and small white or rose-colored flowers in terminal and axillary 

 small cymes : flowering in summer. 



1. A. androsaemifolium, Linn. Erect, with divergent branches, glabrous, in 

 one form soft-tomentose, at least when young : leaves ovate or roundish, an inch or 

 two long, abruptly and setaceously callous-mucrouate, conspicuously petioled : cymes 

 open : corolla open-campanulate ; its lobes recurved ; its tube much exceeding the 

 calyx. Bot. Mag. t. 280 ; Bigelow, Med. Bot. t, 36. 



Wooded districts, Sierra Nevada to Mt. Shasta ; thence north to British Columbia and east 

 to the Atlantic. 



2. A. cannabinum, Linn. Erect or ascending, with less spreading branches, 

 a foot to a yard high : leaves oblong, sessile or almost so, 2 to 4 inches long : flowers 

 smaller and in closer cymes : corolla narrower and with barely spreading lobes, 

 greenish-white ; the tube not longer than the calyx. 



Along streams, from the southern borders of the State and from near San Francisco to Oregon, 

 Nevada, &c., and east to the Atlantic. This is the species generally used as Indian Hemp ; its 

 bark yields a fine and very tough bast-fibre. It is apparently rather rare in California, although 

 occurring through a wide range. 



2. CYCLADENIA, Benth. 



Calyx 5-parted, hypogynous, naked ; the lobes narrow lanceolate or linear. 

 Corolla short-funnelform, with 5 roundish lobes ; the proper tube short, pubescent 

 at the throat, where is a minute callous appendage alternate with each lobe above 

 the insertion of the stamens. Glandular disk an entire shallow cup surrounding the 

 base of the ovaries. Filaments inserted on the tube, short : anthers sagittate, both 

 tip and basal lobes slender-cuspidate ; otherwise as Apocynum. Style long and 

 filiform : a conspicuous 5-lobed membranous ring xinder the capitate 5-angled and 

 truncate stigma. Follicles lanceolate, smooth, many-seeded. Seeds ovate, narrowed 

 at the apex, which bears a long and copious tuft of down. Depressed perennial 

 herbs (peculiar to California) ; with fleshy branching rootstocks, low and simple or 

 sparingly branched stems bearing 2 to 4 pairs of leaves ; these ample, thickish, 



