viOLACE.fi. (VIOLET FAMILY.) 41 



banks from Lake Champlain and Pennsylvania to Wisconsin and Kentucky. 

 June -Aug. Flowers small: calyx and filaments purplish: petals yellowish- 



white. 



ORDER 14. RESEDACE^E. (MIGNONETTE FAMILY.) , 



Herbs, with unsymmetrical 4 - 7-merous small flowers, with a fleshy one- 

 sided Jiypogynous disk between the petals and the (3-40) stamens, bearing 

 the latter. Calyx not closed in the bud. Pod 3 - Globed, 3 - 6-horned, 1- 

 cetted with 3-6 parietal placentce, opening at the top before the seeds (which 

 are as in Order 13) are full grown. Leaves alternate. Flowers in ter- 

 minal spikes or racemes. A small and unimportant family, of the Old 

 World, represented by the Mignonette (Reseda odorata) and the Dyer's 

 Weed. 



1. RESEDA, L. MIGNONETTE. DYER'S KOCKET. 



Petals 4-7, often cleft, unequal. Stamens 10-40, turned to one side. (De- 

 riv. from resedo, to calm or assuage, in allusion to supposed sedative properties.) 



1. R. LUTEOLA, L. (DYER'S WEED or WELD.) Leaves lanceolate; ca- 

 lyx 4-parted ; petals 4, greenish-yellow ; the upper one 3 - 5-cleft, the two lateral 

 3-cleft, the lower one linear and entire ; pods depressed. Road-sides in W 

 New York, &c. Plant 2 high. Used for dyeing yellow. (Adv. from Eu.) 



ORDER 15. VIOLACE^E. (VIOLET FAMILY.) 



Herbs,, with somewhat irregular l-spurred corolla of 5 petals, 5 Jiypogy- 

 nous stamens with adnate introrse anthers conniving over the pistil, and a 1- 

 celled 3-valved pod with 3 parietal placentce. Sepals 5, persistent. Petals 

 imbricated in the bud. Stamens with their short and broad filaments con- 

 tinued beyond the anther-cells, and often coherent with each other. Style 

 usually club-shaped, with the simple stigma turned to one side and hol- 

 low. Valves of the capsule bearing the several-seeded placentae on their 

 middle. Seeds anatropous, rather large, with a hard seed-coat, and a large 

 and straight embryo nearly as long as the albumen: cotyledons flat. 

 Leaves alternate, with stipules. Flowers axillary, nodding. (Roots slight- 

 ly acrid, or emetic.) Two genera in the Northern United States. 



1. SOL.EA, Ging., DC. GREEN VIOLET. 



Sepals not prolonged at the base. Petals nearly equal in length, hut the low- 

 er one larger and gibbous or saccate at the base, more notched than the others 

 at the apex. Stamens completely united into a sheath enclosing the ovary, and 

 bearing a broad gland on the lower side. Style hooked at the summit. A 

 homely perennial herb, with stems leafy to the top, and 1-3 small greenish- 

 white flowers in the axils, on short recurved pedicels. (Named hi honor of W 

 author of an essay on the British Mints.) 

 4* 



