74 LIMXANTHACE^E. (LIMNANTHES FAMILY.) 



the larger ones, as described above, which seldom ripen seeds, and very small 

 ones, which are fertilized early in the bud, when the floral envelopes never ex- 

 pand, nor grow to their full size, but are forced off by the growing pod and car- 

 ried upwards on its apex. (Name from the sudden bursting of the pods when 

 touched, whence also the popular appellation, Touch-me-not, or Snap-weed.) 



1. I. paJlida, Nutt. (PALE TOUCH-ME-NOT.) Flowers pale yelloiv, spar- 

 ingly dotted with brownish-red ; sac dilated and very obtuse, broader than long, 

 tipped with a short incurved spur. Moist shady places and along rills, in rich 

 soil; most common northwestward. July -Sept. Larger and greener than 

 the next, with larger flowers. Leaves ovate, petioled, toothed. 



2. S. fulva, Nutt. (SPOTTED TOUCH-ME-NOT.) Flowers orange-cohr, 

 thickly spotted with reddish-brown ; sac longer than broad, acutely conical, taper- 

 ing into a strongly inflexed spur, Rills and shady moist places ; common, 

 especially southward. June -Sept. Plant 2 -4 high: the flowers loosely 

 panicled at the ends of the branches, hanging gracefully on their slender nod- 

 ding stalks, the open mouth of the cornucopite-shaped sepal upward. A variety 

 is occasionally found with spotless flowers, which differs from the I. Noli-tangere 

 of Europe chiefly in the more inflexed spur and smaller petals. 



I. BALSAMINA, L., is the BALSAM or Ladies' slipper of the garden. 

 TROP^OLUM MAJUS, the familiar NASTURTIUM of gardens, is the type of a 



group intermediate between the Balsam and Geranium families and the next. 







ORDER 30. LJMNANTHACE^E. (LIMNANTHES FAMILY.) 



Annual low herbs, with pinnated alternate leaves without stipules, and reg- 

 ular 3 - 5-merous flowers : calyx valvate in the bud : stamens twice as many 

 as the petals: the one-seeded little fleshy fruits separate, but their styles united. 

 Consists of one 5-merous Californian genus (Limnanthes) with hand- 

 some flowers, sometimes cultivated in gardens, and the insignificant 



1. Fl.flERK.EA, Willd. FALSE MERMAID. 



Sepals 3. Petals 3, shorter than the calyx, oblong. Stamens 6, nearly hy- 

 pogynous. Ovaries 3, opposite the sepals, united only at the base ; the style 

 rising in the centre: stigmas 3. Fruit of 3 (or 1 -2) roughish fleshy achenia. 

 Seed anatropous, erect, filled by the large embryo with its hemispherical fleshy 

 cotyledons. A small and inconspicuous annual, with minute solitary flowers 

 on axillary peduncles. (Named after Floerke, a German botanist.) 



1. F. proserpiliacoides, Willd. Marshes and river-banks, W. New 

 England to Wisconsin and Kentucky. April -June. Leaflets 3-5, lanceo- 

 late, sometimes 2 - 3-cleft. Taste slightly pungent. 



ORDER 31. RUTACE^E. (RuE FAMILY.) 



Plants with simple or compound leaves, dotted with pellucid glands, dbcund- 

 ing with a pungent or bitter-aromatic acrid volatile oil, hypogynous regular 

 8 5-merous flowers, the stamens as many or twice as many as the sepals ; the 



