LINACEAE. 



195 



1. Linum usitatissimum L. 



Flax. Linseed. (Eig. 215.) 

 Annual, often tufted, branch- 

 ing above, l°-2° high; leaves 

 alternate, 3-nerve(l, lanceolate, 

 i'-lV long, l"-3" Avide; inflo- 

 rescence a terminal cymose leafy 

 panicle; flowers 6"-8" broad; 

 pedicels slender; sepals oval, 

 acuminate, the interior ones 

 eiliate and 3-ribbed; petals ob- 

 cuneate, crenulate, blue, twice 

 the length of the sepals; cap- 

 sule ovoid-conic, 3''-4" long, in- 

 dehiscent, the septa not eiliate. 



Occasional in waste places. 

 Introduced, Native of Europe. 

 Naturalized in North America. 

 Flowers in spring and summer. 

 Flax is not cultivated in Bermuda. 



Linum grandiflorum Desf., 

 Flowering Flax, North Afri- 

 can, frequent in flower-gardens, 

 is a glabrous, branched annual 

 about 2° high, with lanceolate 

 acute leaves about V long, and many slender-pedicelled flowers, the red obovate 

 spreading petals much longer than the pointed sepals, the depressed-globose 

 capsules about 4" broad. 



Erjrthroxylon Coca Lam., Cocaine Tree, Peruvian, of the related family 

 Erythroxylaceae, a small glabrous tree, with alternate, oval to oval-obovate, 

 short-petioled stipulate obtuse simple leaves l'-3' long, dark green above, 

 pale and with two faint lines nearly parallel with the margin beneath, small 

 pedicelled flowers solitary or few in the axils, the calyx 5-cleft, the corolla of 

 5 white petals, the 10 stamens united below into a tube, the 3-celled ovary 

 ripening into a small drupe, was represented by a vigorous plant about 8° 

 high in the collection at the Agricultural Station in 1913. The drug, cocaine, 

 is derived from its leaves. 



Family 5. OXALIDACEAE Lindl. 



Wood-sorrel Fa:mily. 



Leafy-stemmed or acaiilescent herbs, or rarely shnibs, often with root- 

 stocks or scaly bulbs, the sap sour. Leaves mostly palmately 3-foliolate, 

 in some tropical species pinnate, or entire and peltate; stipules com- 

 monly present as scarious expansions of the petiole-bases; leaflets mostly 

 obeordate. Flowers perfect, in umbel-like or forking- cymes, or solitary-, 

 sometimes cleistogamous ; peduncles mostly lonp:. Sepals 5, often un- 

 equal. Petals 5, white, pink, purple or yellow. Stamens 10-15. Ovaiy 

 5-celled, 5-lobed; styles united, or distinct; ovules 2-many in each cavity; 

 fruit a loeulieidal globose or columnar capsule, rarely liaccate. Embryo 



