320 PIPERACEAE (PEPPER FAMILY) 



PIPERACEAE (PEPPER FAMILY) 



Herbs, with joined stems, alternate entire leaves, and perfect flowers in spikes, 

 entirely destitute of floral envelopes, and with 3-5 more or less separate or united 

 ovaries; ovules few, orthotropous. The characters are those of the Tribe 

 Saurureae, the Piperaceae proper (wholly tropical) differing in having a 1-celled 

 and 1-ovuled ovary. 



1. SAURtRUS [Plum.] L. LIZARD'S TAIL 



Stamens mostly 6 or 7, hypogynous, with distinct filaments. Fruit somewhat 

 fleshy, wrinkled, of 3-4 indehiscent carpels united at base. Stigmas recurved. 

 Seeds usually solitary, ascending. Perennial marsh herbs, with heart-shaped 

 converging-ribbed petioled leaves, without distinct stipules ; flowers (each with 

 a small bract adnate to or borne on the pedicel) crowded in a slender wand-like 

 and naked-peduncled terminal spike or raceme (its appearance giving rise to the 

 name, from <ravpos, a lizard, and oupd, tail'). 



1. S. cSrnuus L. Flowers white, fragrant ; spike nodding at the end ; bract 

 lanceolate ; filaments long and capillary. Swamps and shallow water, near the 

 coast, R. I. to Fla. ; and from s. Ont. and O. to Minn, and southw. June-Aug. 



SALICACEAE (WILLOW FAMILY) 



Dioecious (or by exception monoecious) trees or shrubs, with both kinds of 

 flowers in catkins, one to each bract (scale), without perianth ; the fruit a l-celled 

 and 2-1-valved pod, with 2-4 parietal or basal placentae, bearing numerous seeds 

 furnished with long silky down. Stigmas 2, often 2-lobed. Seeds ascending, 

 anatropous, without albumen. Cotyledons flattened. Leaves alternate, undi- 

 vided, with scale-like and deciduous, or else leaf-like and persistent, stipules. 

 Wood soft and light ; bark bitter. 



1. Saliz. Scales entire or merely toothed. Flowers with small glands at base; disk none. 



Stamens few. Stigmas short. Buds with a single scale. 



2. Populus. Scales lacerate. Flowers with a broad or cup-shaped disk. Stamens numerous. 



Stigmas elongated. Buds covered by several scales. 



1. SALIX [Tourn.] L. WILLOW. OSIER 



Sterile flowers of 3-10, mostly 2, distinct or united stamens, accompanied by 

 1 or 2 small glands. Fertile flowers also with a small flat gland at the base of 

 the ovary ; stigmas short. Trees or shrubs, with mostly terete and lithe 

 branches. Leaves mostly long and pointed, entire or glandular-toothed. 

 Buds covered by a single scale, with an inner usually adherent membrane. 

 Catkins appearing before or with the leaves. (The classical Latin name. ) 

 Species largely wind-pollinated and very freely hybridizing. 



JV. B. In this genus, unless otherwise noted, the figures of the leaves are on 

 a scale of \, while those of the fruit are on a scale of 3J. 



1. Arnents borne on short lateral leafy branchlets ; scales yellowish, fall ing 

 before the capsules mature ; fllaments hairy below, all free ; style very short 

 or obsolete ; stigmas thick, notched. 



* Stamens 3-6 or more. 



t- Leaves with no petiolar glands; sterile aments elongated, slender-cylindri- 

 cal; flowers somewhat remotely subverticillate ; scales crisp-villous <i tin' 

 inside. 



1. S. nigra Marsh. (BLACK W.) Shrub, or, when well developed, a rough- 

 barked tree 5-30 in. high ; leaves narrowly lanceolate, very long-attenuate from 



