BUCKWHEAT FAMILY. 367 



S. herb&cea, Linn. Erect or spreading, green ; spikes elongated and 

 narrow, the scale obscure and very blunt. Salt places, along the coast 

 and inland. 



S. ambfgua, Michx. Tufted, with long decumbent or ascending hard 

 steins, greenish or lead color ; spikes slender and short-jointed, the scales 

 short or acutish. Seacoast, Mass. to Tex. 2Z 



XCV. PHYTOLACCACiLffi, POKE WEED FAMILY. 



A small family of herbs or shrubs, with alternate and entire 

 thin leaves and perfect flowers, the latter with the characters 

 of the Goosefoot Family, except that the ovary is usually 

 several-celled, the carpels united in a ring and (in ours) form- 

 ing a berry. 



1. KIVINA. Calyx 4-parted, colored like a corolla. Stamens 4-8. Ovary l-celled. Stigma 



capitate, the style short. Herbs with a woody base and white or rose-colored flowers 

 In axillary and terminal racemes. 



2. PHYTOLACCA. Calyx of 5 rounded, petal-like, white sepals. Stamens 5-30. Ovary of 



several cells and lobes, bearing as many short styles, in ♦ruit a depressed juicy berry, 

 containing a ring of vertical seeds. Rank herb, with terminal (becoming lateral) 

 racemes. 



1. RIVINA. (A. Q. Rivinus, a German botanist, two hundred years 



ago. ) 2/ 



R. htunilis, Linn. Very finely pubescent or glabrous, l°-2° ; leaves 

 oblong- or lance-ovate, long-petioled and acuminate, alternate ; small 

 whitish flowers in short racemes, followed by small oblong red berries. 

 Cult, in greenhouses from Trop. Amer., for its ornamental fruit, and 

 native in S. Fla. 



2. PHYTOLACCA, POKEWEEI), SCOKE. (Hybrid name, of Greek 

 and French, referring to the crimson or lake coloring of the berries.) 2Z 



P. dec^dra, Linn. Common P. or Scoke, Garget, Pigeon Berry. 

 Coarse smooth weed of low grounds, with large acrid-poisonous root, stout 

 stems 6°-9° high, alternate ovate-oblong leaves on long petioles, and 

 racemes becoming lateral opposite a leaf, in summer, ripening the dark 

 crimson purple berries in autumn ; stamens, styles, and seeds 10. Young 

 shoots sometimes eaten as a pot herb. 



XCVI. POLYGONACEiE, BUCKWHEAT FAMILY. 



Known by the alternate entire leaves having stipules in the 

 form of scarious or membranous sheaths or ocreae (sometimes 

 obsolete) at the strongly marked usually tumid joints of the 

 stem. Flowers mostly perfect, on jointed pedicels, with green 

 or colored 3-6-parted usually persistent or withering calyx, 

 4-12 stamens on its base, 2 or 3 stigmas, l-celled ovary with 

 a single ovule rising from its base (Lessons, Figs. 342, 344), 

 forming an akene or nutlet which is 2-4-angled or winged. 



