446 ARISTOLOCHIACE^E. (BIKTHWORT FAMILY.) 



3. Calyx-tube straight, open, with ample 6-lobed limb, the Lobes appendaged , 

 anthers equidistant; erect herbs ; flowers in axil/art/ cymose fascicles. 



A. CLEMATITIS, L., with long-petioled cordate leaves, from Europe, is said 

 to have permanently escaped near Ithaca, N. Y. (Dudley). 



ORDER 92. PIPERACEJE. (PEPPER FAMILY.) 



Herbs, with jointed stems, alternate entire leaves, and perfect flowers in 

 spikes, entirely destitute of floral envelopes, and with 3-5 more or less 

 separate or united ovaries. Ovules few, orthotropous. Embryo heart- 

 shaped, minute, contained in a little sac at the apex of the albumen. 

 The characters are those of the Tribe Saururece, the Piperacece proper 

 (wholly tropical) differing in having a 1 -celled and 1-ovuled ovary. 



1. SAURURUS, L. LIZARD'S-TAIL. 



Stamens mostly 6 or 7, hypogynous, with distinct filaments. Fruit some 

 what fleshy, wrinkled, of 3-4 indehiscent carpels united at base. Stigmas 

 recurved. Seeds usually solitary, ascending. Perennial marsh herbs, with 

 heart-shaped converging-ribbed petioled leaves, without distinct stipules ; flow- 

 ers (each with a small bract adnate to or borne on the pedicel) crowded in a 

 slender wand-like and naked peduncled terminal spike or raceme (its appear- 

 ance giving rise to the name, from vavpos, a lizard, and ovpd, tall). 



1. S. C^rmiUS, L. Flowers white, fragrant; spike nodding at the end ; 

 bract lanceolate ; filaments long and capillary. Swamps, Conn, to Ont., Minn.. 

 Mo., and southward. June - Aug. 



ORDER 93. LAURACEJE. (LAUREL FAMILY.) 



Aromatic trees or shrubs, with alternate simple leaves mostly marked with 

 minute pellucid dots, and flowers with a regular calyx of or colored 

 sepal*, imbricated in 2 rows in the bud, free from the 1-celled and l-ovuled 

 ovary, and mostly fewer than the stamens ; anthers opening by 2 or 4 uplifted 

 valves. Flowers clustered. Style single. Fruit a 1-seeded berrv or 

 drupe. Seed anatropous, suspended, with no albumen, filled bv the larg^ 

 almond-like embryo. 

 * Flowers perfect, panicled ; stamens 12, three of them sterile, three with extrorse anthers. 



1. Persea. Calyx persistent. Anthers 4-celled. Evergreen. 



* * Flowers dioecious, or nearly so ; stamens in the sterile flowers 9. Leaves deciduous. 



2. Sassafras. Flowers in corymb- or umbel-like racemes. Anthers 4-celled, 4-valv^ 



3. T.itsea. Flowers few in involucrate umbels. Anthers 4-celled, 4-valved. 



4. Uiidera. Flowers in umbel-like clusters. Anthers 2-celled, 2-valved. 



1. PERSEA, Gaertn. ALLIGATOR PEAR. 



Flowers perfect, with a 6-parted calyx, persistent at the base of the oei,*Y-like 

 fruit. Stamens 12, in four rows, the 3 of the innermost row sterile and gland- 

 like, the rest bearing 4-celled anthers (i. e. with each proper cell divided trans 

 versely into two), opening by as many uplifted valves; the anthers of 3 

 stamens turned outward, the others introrse. Trees, with persistent entire 

 leaves, and small panicled flowers. (An ancient name of some Oriental tree.) 



