27G MILKWEED FAMILY. 



88. ASCLEPIADACE^l, MILKWEED FAMILY. 



Plants with milky juice, leaves, pistils, fruits, and seeds nearly as 

 in the preceding family ; but the anthers more connected with the 

 stigma, their pollen collected into firm waxy or granular masses 

 (mostly 10), the short filaments (monadelphous except iy the last 

 genus) commonly bear curious appendages behind the anthers form- 

 ing what is called a crown, and the corolla more commonly valvate 

 in the bud. The flowers are rather too difficult for the beginner 

 readily to understand throughout. For a particular study of them 

 the Manual must be used. 



1. Erect herbs, with ordinary foliage, and deeply 5-parfed reflexed calyx and 

 corolla. Flinoers in simple umbels. Fruit a pair of juris (follicles,) containing 

 numerous flat seed* furnished with a coma (Lessons, p. 135, fig. 317) or long 

 tuft of sift down at one end. 



1. ASCLEPIAS. Stamens with their short filaments monadelphous in a ring or 



tube, bearing behind each anther a curious erect and hood-like or ear-like 

 appendage, with a horn projecting out of the inside of it: the 5 broad anthers 

 closely surrounding and partly adhering to the very thick stigma, a mem- 

 branous appendage at their tip inflected over it. Each of the 2 cells of the 

 anther has a firm waxy pear-shaped pollen-mass in it: and the two adja- 

 cent masses from two contiguous anthers are suspended by a stalk from a 

 dark gland; these 5 glands, borne on the margin of the flat top of the stigma, 

 stick to the legs, &c. of insects, and arc carried off, each gland taking with it 

 2 pollen masses, the whole somewhat resembling a pair of saddle-bags. 



2. ACERATES. Like Asclepias, but no horn in the hoods or ear-like appendages, 



and the flowers always greenish. 



2. Tirininy plants uith ordinary foliage, ; pods and seeds nearly as in Asclepias. 



* Anthers with their hanging pollen-masses nearly as Asilejtias : pods smooth and even. 



3. ENSLENIA. Calyx and corolla 5-parted, the divisions lance-ovate and nearly 



erect. The 5 appendages of the filaments are in the form of membranaceous 

 leaflets, each bearing a pair of awns on their truncate tip. Herb. 



4. VINCETOXICUM. Corolla 5-parted, wheel-shaped. A flat and fleshy 



6- 10-lobed disk or crown in place of the hoods of Asclepias. Herbs. 



* * The 10 pollen-masses horizontal, jixed in pairs to 5 ylands of the stigma. 

 6. GONOLOBUS. Corolla wheel-shaped: a fleshy and wary-lobed ring or crown 

 in its throat. 



* * * The 10 short pollen-masses fxvd by their b'we in pairs to the 5 ylands of the 



stiyma, and em 1. Shrubby plants, of tropical regions. 

 6. IIOYA. Corolla wheel-shaped. 5-lobed, thick and wax-like in appearance. 



Crown of 6 thick and depressed fleshy appendages radiating from the central 



column. 

 1. STEPHANOTIS. Corolla salver-shaped, the tube including the stamens, 



crown, &c., in its somewhat swollen ba-e, the " ovate lobes convolute in the 



bud. Crown of 5 thin erect appendages. Stigma conical. 



* * # * AntJurs distinct, the 5 puff en- masses each composed of 4 small granular 



masses united., and a/>plied directly to the yl'inds of (lie Kliymn tritliout any stalk. 

 Shrubby tiri ners. 



8. PERIPLOCA. Corolla 5-parted, wheel-shaped, the divisions hairv on the 

 upper t'a<-<>: alternate with them are 5 small thick scales, each bearing a 

 bristle-shaped appendage. Filaments distinct, bearing anthers of more ordi- 

 narv appearance than in the rest of this laniilv. Stigma hemispherical. 

 Puds smooth. 



3. Fltshy lore plants, Cactus-like, taifh onh/ small fleshy 'scales or teeth in place (if 

 lenrts, on the angles of ilie thickened stems or branches. 



8. STAI'KLIA. Flowers large, lurid, solitary lateral. Calyx 5-parted. Corolla 

 6-clet't, wheel-shaped: within is a crown formed of two' rings of short appen- 

 dages or !i>!>e-". Mas>es of waxy pollen 10, erect. 



