120 POLYGALACEJS. (MILKWORT FAMILY.) 



1. N. aceroides, Moench. (Acer Negundo, L.) Leaflets smoothish 

 when old, very veiny, ovate, pointed, toothed ; fruit smooth, with large rather 

 incurved wings. Eiver-banks. Pennsylvania to Wisconsin, and southward. 

 April. A small but handsome tree, with light-green twigs, and very delicate 

 drooping clusters of small greenish flowers, rather earlier than the leaves. 



ORDER 31. POL.YGAL,ACE^E. (MILKWORT FAMILY.) 



Plants with irregular hypogynous flowers, 4-8 diadelphous or monadel- 

 phous stamens, their l-celled anthers opening at the top by a pore or chink ; 

 the fruit a 2-celled and 2-seeded pod. Represented in this country only 

 by the genus 



1. POL^GALA, Tourn. MILKWORT. . 



Flower very irregular. Calyx persistent, of 5 sepals, of which 3 (the upper 

 and the 2 lower) are small and often greenish, while the two lateral or inner 

 (called wings) are much larger, and colored like the petals. Petals 3, hypogy- 

 nous, connected with each other and with the stamen-tube, the middle (lower) 

 one keel-shaped and often crested on the back. Stamens 6 or 8 : their filaments 

 united below into a split sheath, or into 2 sets, cohering more or less with the 

 petals, free above: anthers l-celled, often cup-shaped, opening by a hole or 

 broad chink at the apex. Ovary 2-celled, with a single anatropous ovule pen- 

 dulous in each cell : style prolonged and curved : stigma various. Fruit a 

 small, loculicidal 2-seeded pod, usually rounded and notched at the apex, much 

 flattened contrary to the very narrow partition. Seeds with, a caruncle, or va- 

 riously shaped appendage, at the hilum. Embryo large, straight, with flat and 

 broad cotyledons, surrounded by a sparing albumen. Bitter plants (low -herbs 

 in temperate regions), with simple entire often dotted leaves, and no stipules : 

 sometimes (as in the last two species) bearing concealed flowers next the ground, 

 which are fertilized in the closed bud. (An old name composed of TroXvs, much, 

 and -ydXo, milk, from a fancied property of its increasing this secretion.) 



1. Biennials or annuals, with alternate leaves, and yellow flowers, ivhich are dis- 

 posed to turn greenish in drying : crest of the keel (lower petal) small : flowering 

 all summer. 



1. P. Itltea, L. Low; flowers (bright orange-yellow) in solitary ovate or oblong 

 heads (|' thick,) terminating the stem or simple branches ; leaves (!'- 2' long) ob- 

 ovate or spatulate ; lobes of the caruncle nearly as long as the seed. Sandy swamps, 

 New Jersey and southward, near the coast. 



2. P. rambsa, Ell. Flowers (citron-yellow) in numerous short and dense spike- 

 like racemes collected in a flat-topped compound cyme ; leaves oblong-linear, the 

 lowest spatulate or obovate ; seeds ovoid ; minutely hairy, twice the length of the 

 caruncle. (P. cymosa, Poir., not of Walt. P. corymbosa, Nutt.) Damp pine- 

 barrens, Delaware and southward. (The allied P. CYM6sA, Walt., which is 

 P. graminifolia, Poir., P. attenuata, Nutt. and P. acutifolia, Torr. $- Gray, 

 known by its simpler cymes, stem naked above, narrower leaves, and globu- 

 lar seeds with no caruncle, may occur in S. Virginia.) 



