88 LEGUMINOSuE. (PULSE FAMILY.) 



13. P. pailCifolia, Willd. Perennial; flowering stems short (3' -4 

 high), and leafy chiefly at the summit, rising from long and slender prostrate or 

 subterranean shoots, which also bear concealed fertile flowers; lower leaves 

 small and scale-like, scattered; the upper leaves ovate, petioled, crowded ; flowers 

 1-3, large, peduncled ; wings obovate, rather shorter than the conspicuously 

 fringe-crested keel ; stamens 6 ; caruncle of 2 - 3 awl-shaped lobes longer than 

 the seed. Woods in light soil; not rare northward, extending southward 

 along the Alleghanies. May. A delicate plant, with large and very hand- 

 some flowers, f long, rose-purple, or rarely pure white. Sometimes called 

 Flowering Wintergreen, but more appropriately FRINGED POLYGALA. 



ORDER 38. LEGUMINOS^. (PULSE FAMILY.) . 



Plants with papilionaceous or sometimes regular flowers, 10 (rarely 5, and 

 sometimes many) monadelphous, diadelphous, or rarely distinct stamens, and 

 ngle simple free pistil, becoming a legume in fruit. Seeds without 

 men. Leaves alternate, with stipules, usually compound. One of the 

 sqpals inferior (i. e. next the bract) ; one of the petals superior (i. e 

 next the axis of the inflorescence). A very large order (nearly free from 

 cms qualities), of which the principal representatives in this and 

 6thj* northern temperate regions belong to the first of the three sub- 

 ordeps it comprises. 



x^M)RDER I. PAPILIONACE^E. THE PROPER PULSE FAMILY. 



Cailyx of 5 sepals, more or less united, often unequally so. Corolla pe- 

 IGUS (inserted into the base of the calyx), of 5 irregular petals (or very 

 ;elj,fewer), imbricated in the bud, more or less distinctly papilionaceous, 

 ?,. with the upper or odd- petal, called the vexillum or standard, larger 

 the others and enclosing them in the bud, usually turned backward or 

 xling ; the two lateral ones, called the wings, oblique and exterior to 

 the two lower petals, which last are connivent and commonly more or less 

 coherent by their anterior edges, forming a body named the carina or keel, 

 from* its' resemblance to the keel or prow of- a boat, arid which usually en- 

 closes the stamens and pistil. Stamens 10, very rarely 5, inserted with the 

 corolla, monadelphous, diadelphous (mostly with 9 united in one set in a 

 tube which is cleft on the upper side, i. e. next the standard, and the tenth 

 or upper one separate), or occasionally distinct. Ovary 1-celled, sometimes 

 2-celled by an infolding of one of the sutures, or transversely many-celled 

 by cross-division into joints : style simple : ovules amphitropous, very rare- 

 ly anatropous. Cotyledons large, thick or thickish : radicle almost always 

 incurved. Leaves simple or simply compound, the earliest ones in germi- 

 nation usually opposite, the rest alternate : leaflets almost always quite en- 

 tire. Flowers perfect, solitary and axillary, or in spikes, racemes, or pan- 

 icles. 



