360 NYCTAGINACELE. (FOUR-O'CLOCK FAMILY.) 



2. A It IS TO LOG II I A, Tourn. BIRTHWORT. 



Calyx tubular, the tube extended, variously inflated above the ovary, mostly 

 contracted at the throat. Stamens 6, the sessile anthers wholly adnatc to the 

 hack of the short and fleshy 3 -6-lobed or angled stigma. Pod naked, 6-valved. 

 Seeds flat. Twining, climbing, or sometimes upright perennial herbs or shrubs, 

 with alternate leaves and lateral or axillary greenish or lurid-purple flowers. 

 (Named from its reputed medicinal properties.) 



| 1 . Calyx-tube bent like the letter S, enlarged at the two ends, the small limb obtusely 

 3-iol)ed : anthers in pairs (making 4 cells in a row under each of the 3 truncate 

 lobes of the stiyvia ) : low herbs. 



1. A. Serpentariii, L. (VIRGINIA SNAKEROOT.) Stems (8'-15 f 

 high) branched at the base, pubescent; leaves ovate or oblong from a heart- 

 shaped base, or halberd-form, mostly acute or pointed; flowers all next the 

 root, short-pedunclcd. A narrow-leaved variety is A. sagittata, J/uAt., A. hir- 

 suta, Nutt., &c. Rich woods, Connecticut to Indiana and southward; not 

 common except near the Allcghany Mountains. July. The fibrous, aromatic- 

 stimulant root is well known in medicine. 



2. Calyx-tube strongly curved like a Dutch pipe, contracted at the mouth, the short 

 limb obscurely 3-lobed : anthers in pairs under each of the 3 short and thick lobes of 

 the stigma : twining shrubs : flowers from one or two of the superposed accessory 

 axillary buds. 



2. A. Stpho, L'Her. (PiPE-ViNB- DUTCHMAN'S PIPE.) Glabrous , 

 leaves round-kidney-shapcd, slightly downy underneath ; peduncles with a clasp- 

 ing bract; calyx (!' long) with a brown-purple, abrupt flat border. Rich 

 woods, Penn. to Kentucky, and southward, along the mountains. May. Stems 

 sometimes 2' in diameter, climbing trees : full-grown leaves 8'- 12' broad. 



3. A. tomcntosa, Sims. Downy or soft-hairy ; leaves round-heart-shapea 

 very veiny (3' -5' long) ; cafyx greenish-yellow, with an oblique dark purple closed 

 on/ice and a rugose reflexed liinb. Rich woods, from Southern Illinois south- 

 ward. June. 



ORDER 88. NYCTAGINACE^E. (FOUR-O'CLOCK FAMILY.) 



Herbs (or in the tropics often shrubs or trees), with mostly opposite and en- 

 tire leaves, stems tumid at the joints, a delicate tubular or funnel-form calyx 

 ir /licit is colored like a corolla, its persistent base constricted above the \-celled 

 l-sceded ovary, and indurated into a soi't of nut-like pericarp ; the stamens 

 1 -several, slender, aixf In/pogynous ; the embryo coiled around the outside of 

 meaftf albumen, with broad filaceous cotyledons. Represented in our gar- 

 dens by the common FOUR-O'CLOCK, or MARVEL OF PERU (Mirdbilis 

 Jalapa), in which tie calyx is commonly mistaken for a corolla because 

 the cup-like involucre of each flower exactly imitates a calyx ; and by a 

 single 





