88 LEGUMINOS^E. (PULSE FAMILY.) 



13. P. pauci folia, Willd. Perennial; flowering stems short (3 -V 

 high), and Icwfy chiefly at the summit, rising from long and slender prostrate or 

 subterranean shoots, which also bear concealed fertile llowers ; lower leaves 

 small and scale-like, scattered; the upper leaves ovate, petioled, crowded ; Jioice rs 

 1-3, large, pcduncled ; wings obovatc, rather shorter than the conspicuously 

 fringe-crested keel ; stamens 6; caruncle of 2 - 3 awl-shaped lobes longer than 

 the seed. Woods in light soil ; not rare northward, extending southward 

 along the Alleghanies. May. A delicate plant, with large and very hand- 

 some flowers, I' long, rose-purple, or rarely pure white. Sometimes called 

 Flowering Winteryreen, but more appropriately FUIXGED POLYGALA. 



ORDER 38. LEGUMINOS^. (PULSE FAMILY.) 



Plants with papilionaceous or sometimes regular flowers, 10 (rarely 5, and 

 sometimes many) monadelplious, diadelphous, or rarely distinct stamens, and 

 a single simple free pistil, becoming a legume in fruit. Seed* without 

 albumen. Leaves alternate, with stipules, usually compound. One of the 

 sepals inferior (i. e. next the bract) ; one of the petals superior (i. e. 

 next the axis of the inflorescence). A very large order (nearly free from 

 noxious qualities), of which the principal representatives in this and 

 other northern temperate regions belong to the first of the three sub- 

 orders it comprises. 



SUBORDER I. PAPILIONACE^E. THE PROPER PULSE FAMILY. 



Calyx of 5 sepals, more or less united, often unequally so. Corolla pe- 

 rigynous (inserted into the base of the calyx), of 5 irregular petals (or very 

 rarely fewer), imbricated in the bud, more or less distinctly papilionaceous^ 

 i. e. with the upper or odd petal, called tho wxilluin or skunlurd, larger 

 than the others and enclosing them in the bud, usually turned backward or 

 spreading; the two lateral ones, called the wings, oblique and exterior to 

 the two lower petals, which last are connivent and commonly more or less 

 coherent by their anterior edges, forming a body named the carnui or keel, 

 from its resemblance to the keel or prow of a boat, and which usually en- 

 ein<es the stamens and pistil. Stamens 10, very rarely 5, inserted with the 

 corolla, monaclel|)hous, diadelphous (mostly with U united iu one set in a 

 tube which is cleft on the upper side, i. e. next the standard, and the tenih 

 or upper one separate), or occasionally distinct. Ovary 1-celled. sometimes 

 2-celled by an infolding of one of the sutures, or transversely many-colletl 

 by cross-division into joints: style simple: ovules arnphitropous, very rare- 

 ly anatropous. Cotyledons large, thick or thiekish : radicle, almost always 

 incurved. Leaves simple or simply compound, the earliest ones in gei mi- 

 nation usually opposite, the rest alternate : leaflets almost always quite en- 

 tire. Flowers perfect, solitary and axillary, or in spikes, raceme, or pan- 

 icles. 



