POLYGALACE2E. (MILKWORT FAMILY.) 85 



6. A. rubrum, L. (RED or SWAMP MAPLE.) Leaves 3 - 5 lobed with 

 the sinuses acute, whitish underneath; the lobes irregularly serrate and notched, 

 acute , the middle one usually longest ; petals linear-oblong ; flowers on very short 

 pedicels (scarlet, crimson, or sometimes yellowish) ; but the fruit smooth, on pro- 

 longed drooping pedicels. Swamps and wet woods ; everywhere. March, 

 April. A small tree, with reddish twigs ; the leaves varying greatly in shape, 

 turning bright crimson in early aiitumn. 



A. FSEUDO-PLATANTJS, L., the FALSE SYCAMORE, and A. PLATANOIDES, 

 L., called NORWAY MAPLE, are two European species occasionally planted. 



4. 1VJEG1JNDO, Moanch. ASH-LEAVED MAPLE. BOX-ELDER. 



Flowers dioecious. Calyx minute, 4 - 5-cleft. Petals none. Stamens 4 -5. 



Sterile flowers in clusters on capillary pedicels ; the fertile in drooping ra- 

 cemes, from lateral buds. Leaves pinnate, with 3 or 5 leaflets. (Name un- 

 meaning. The genus, apparently of only a single species, is too near Acer 

 itself.) 



1. TV. aceroicles, Moench. (Acer Negundo, L.) Leaflets smoothish 

 when old, very veiny, ovate, pointed, toothed ; fruit smooth, with large rather 

 incurved wings. River-banks. Penn. to Wisconsin, and southward. April. 



A small but handsome tree, with light-green twigs, and very delicate droop- 

 ing clusters of small greenish flowers, rather preceding the leaves. 



ORDER 37. POLYGAL.ACEJE. (MILKWORT FAMILY.) 



Plants with irregular, as if papilionaceous, hypogynous ffoivers, 4-8 dia- 

 delphous or monad elphous stamens, their l-celled anthers opening at the top 

 by a pore or chink ; the fruit a 2-celled and 2-seeded pod. Represented 

 by the typical genus 



1. POLYOAL.A, Tourn. MILKWORT. 



Flower very irregular. Calyx persistent, of 5 sepals, of which 3 (the upper 

 and the 2 lower) are small and often greenish, while the two lateral or inner 

 (called ivings) arc much larger, and colored like the petals. Petals 3, hypogy- 

 nous, connected with each other and with the stamen-tube, the middle (lower) 

 one ket'l-slwpud. and often crested on the back. Stamens 6 or 8 : their filaments 

 united below into a split sheath, or into 2 sets, cohering more or less with the 

 petals, free above : anthers 1-eclled, often cup-shaped, opening by a hole 01 

 broad chink at the apex. Ovary 2-celled, with a single anatropous ovule pen 

 dulous in each cell : style prolonged and curved : stigma various. Fruit a 

 small, loculicidal 2-seeded pod, usually rounded and notched at the apex, much 

 flattened contrary to the veiy naiTow partition. Seeds with a caruncle, or vari- 

 ously shaped appendage, at the hilum. Embryo large, straight, with flat and 

 broad cotyledons, surrounded by a sparing albumen. Bitter plants (low herbs 

 in temperate rejrions), with simple entire leaves, often dotted, and no stipules : 

 sometimes bearing concealed fertile flowers also next the ground. (An old 

 8 



