THE FIGWORT FAMILY 



FAMILY SCROPHULARIACE.E Lindley 



HIS family comprises about i8o genera containing some 2500 species 

 of herbs, shrubs, and a few trees and chmbers, of very wide geo- 

 graphic distribution; they are of no special economic value, although 

 a number of them have medicinal properties and are used in domestic 

 medicine. Digitalis purpurea Linnaeus, of which the leaves under the name Fox- 

 glove are used, is the only one of sufficient value to be recognized in the phar- 

 macopoeia. As ornamentals many are well-known plants of our gardens, such 

 as the various species of Veronica, Pentstemon and Mimiilus, while the Japanese 

 tree Paulownia, often planted for shade, has become naturaUzed in the eastern 

 States. 



The Scrophulariaceae have simple, opposite, sometimes whorled or alternate 

 leaves, without stipules. The flowers are mostly perfect, irregular and variously 

 clustered; the calyx is free, persistent, 4- or 5-toothed, cleft or divided; the co- 

 rolla is more or less irregular, generally 2-Hpped; the stamens are partly attached 

 to the corolla-tube, 2, 4 or 5 in number, usually in 2 pairs with a fifth sterile 

 one, alternate with the corolla lobes and often appendaged; the ovary is single, 

 superior, 2-celled, with numerous o\ailes; the style is slender, usually simple; stigma 

 entire or with 2 divisions. The fruit is mostly capsular, 2-valved, rarely berry-Hke, 

 the seeds very numerous, usually with fleshy endosperm and small embr}'o. 



PAULOWNIA TREE 



GENUS PAULOWNIA SIEBOLD AND ZUCCARINI 



Species Paulownia tomentosa (Thunberg) Baillon 



Bignonia tomentosa Thunberg. Paulownia imperialis Siebold and Zuccarini 



AULOWNIA is probably the only arborescent genus of the Figwort 

 Family in the north temperate zone. The genus contains two known 

 species, natives of Japan and China. They have much the aspect 

 of Catalpas, with broad opposite long-stalked hairy leaves and large 

 violet flowers in terminal panicles, which open in late spring before the leaves 

 unfold. Paulownia tomentosa has escaped from cultivation and estabhshed itself 

 in southern New York and New Jersey, southward to Florida and Texas. 



The bark is dark brown and rough, the young twigs brown, hair}', becoming 

 smooth. The branch-buds are small, the flower-buds ellipsoid, velvety, 12 mm. 



830 



