7O Introduction to Botany 



XII. DESMANTHUS. 



(Gr., desma, a band; anthos, flower.) 



Perennial herbs or shrubs, with bipinnate leaves and small, regular, 

 greenish, or whitish flowers in peduncled, axillary heads or spikes, per- 

 fect or polygamous. Calyx campanulate, 5-toothed. Petals 5 and dis- 

 tinct or slightly coherent below. Stamens 10 or 5, distinct, exserted. 

 Pod flat, several-seeded. 



i. Desmanthus brachylobus, Benth. (Gr., brachys, short ; lobos, lobe.) Stems 

 i to 3 feet high, ascending or erect, nearly or quite glabrous. Pinnae 6-15 pairs. 

 Leaflets 20-30 pairs. Stamens 5. Pods curved, oblong, or lanceolate, in globose 

 heads. Prairies and river banks. 



GERANIACE.. GERANIUM FAMILY. 



Chiefly herbs, with perfect and mostly symmetrical flowers. Parts 

 of the flower usually in 5's. Stamens commonly as many or twice as 

 many as the sepals, often 5 long and 5 short. Ovary 5-lobed and 

 5 -celled. Axis of the dry fruit persisting. 



I. GERANIUM. Cranesbill. 



(Gr.,geranos, a crane, from fancied resemblance of the long carpels to a beak of the crane.) 



Herbs with palmately lobed, parted, or divided leaves, and flowers 

 on axillary i -few-flowered peduncles. Stamens 10, 5 long and 5 short. 

 Sepals and petals 5, imbricated in the bud. Ovary 5-lobed and 5-celled, 

 beaked by the compound style; ovules 2 in each cavity. Carpels 

 breaking away from the central axis in dehiscence. 



1. Geranium maculatum, L. (L., maculatus, spotted.) WILD or SPOTTED 

 CRANESBILL. Perennials with a thick rootstock. i to 2 feet high, branching 

 above ; pubescent, with more or less spreading hairs. Basal leaves long-petioled, 

 deeply 3~5-parted. Stem leaves shorter, but similar. Petals \ inch long, light 

 purple, bearded on the claw. Sepals hairy and awn-pointed. Carpels pubescent. 

 Woods. 



2. Geranium Carolinianum, L. CAROLINA CRANESBILL. Annuals, 6 to 15 

 inches high, branched from the base, diffuse, loosely pubescent. Leaves 5-9- 

 parted, the divisions cleft into somewhat linear lobes. Flowers whitish or pale 

 rose, in compact clusters; peduncles and pedicels short and hairy. Beak of the 

 hispid-pubescent ovary nearly i inch long. In barren soil and waste places. 



