LEADING FAMILIES OF FLOWERING PLANTS 367 



Medicinal substances are derived from belladonna, Capsicum, 

 Hyoscyamus, and other solanaceous plants. 



Ornamental plants of this family are rather numerous. The 

 most familiar ones are species of Datura, tobaccos with showy 

 flowers, matrimony vine, and various 

 species of Nierembergia, Petunia, and 

 Salpiglossis. 



338. The Madder family (Rubiacea). 

 This is one of the largest and most 

 diverse families of. dicotyledons, com- 

 prising about 4500 species of herbs, 

 shrubs, and trees. Its representatives 

 occur in all climates, though the 

 majority are tropical. The flowers 

 are epigynous ; calyx minute ; corolla 

 lobes and stamens as many as the 

 lobes of the calyx; ovary with two 

 locules ; fruit dry or fleshy. The out- 

 line and arrangement of the leaves, 

 which are almost always entire and 

 opposite, and the presence of leafy 

 or scale-like stipules, are especially 

 characteristic of the family. Our com- 

 monest wild genera are three herbs 

 (bluets, cleavers, and partridge berry), 

 and also one shrub, common by ponds 

 and river banks, the buttonbush. 



Coffee is made from the parched seeds of a small, slender, 

 evergreen tree, a native of the mountainous portions of eastern 

 Africa. It is cultivated in many warm countries, the largest 

 amount coming from Brazil, but the finest quality from south- 

 western Arabia and from Java. The abundant white flowers, 

 borne in axillary clusters, produce red, cherry-like drupes 

 (Figs. 301 and 302), within each of which are two seeds, the 

 familiar raw coffee of commerce, valued for the caffeine which 

 they contain and the aromatic oil evident after roasting. 



FIG. 301. A coffee twig with 



berries 

 After Sadebeck 



