Wild Flowers East of the Rockies 273 



DOGBANE FAMILY (Apocynaceae). 



A small family composed chiefly of poisonous trop- 

 ical plants, usually with milky, acrid juices. They 

 have perfect and regular, five-parted flowers and op- 

 posite, smooth-edged leaves. 



INDIAN HEMP (Apocynum cannabinum) is a rath- 

 er unattractive species with a smooth branching 

 stem, rising from vertical roots to heights of 1 to 4 

 feet. The ovate-pointed leaves are lusterless, have 

 very short stems and are closely crowded on the 

 stalk oppositely to one another. 



The small, five-parted, greenish-white flowers grow 

 in terminal clusters. A tiny drop of nectar, secret- 

 ed at the bottom of each small, shallow cup, fur- 

 nishes food for quantities of insects, including a 

 great many crawling ones that are of no value to the 

 plant. The name of Indian Hemp has its origin be- 

 cause Indians formerly used the tough fibres as 

 a substitute for hemp in their basket work. We find 

 this species very abundant in dry fields and thickets 

 throughout our range; it flowers from June to Aug- 

 ust. 



SPREADING DOGBANE (Apocynum androsaemi- 

 folium) is a much more attractive species than its 

 relative, just mentioned. It grows from 1 to 4 feet 

 high, and has many long, spreading branches. The 

 short-stemmed, broadly ovate-pointed, pale green 

 leaves grow oppositely, to the ends of the branches, 

 the leaves are all approximately in the same plane, 

 that is, each succeeding pair does not appear at right 

 angles to the pair before it, as is usually the case. 

 The clusters of flowers terminating the branches are 

 composed of pink, bell-shaped blossoms, having five, 

 pointed, recurved lobes; they are veined with deeper 

 pink and are fragrant. It is adapted to, and largely 

 dependent upon butterflies for the quickening of its 

 seeds. Common on borders of fields or thickets with- 

 in our range. 



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