392 APOCYNACEuE. (DOGBANE FAMILY.) 



3. SPIGELIA, L. PINK-ROOT. WORM-GRASS. 



Calyx 5-parted ; the lobes slender. Corolla tubular-funnel-form, 5-lobed at 

 the summit, valvate in the bud. Stamens 5 : anthers linear. Style 1, slender, 

 hairy above, jointed near the middle. Pod short, 2-celled, twin, laterally flat- 

 tened, separating at maturity from a persistent base into 2 carpels, which open 

 loculicidally, few-seeded. Chiefly herbs, with the pair of leaves united by 

 means of the stipules, and the flowers spiked in one-sided cymes. (Named for 

 Adrian Spiegel, latinized Spigdius, who wrote On botany at the beginning of 

 the seventeenth century, and was perhaps ^the first to give directions for 

 preparing an herbarium.) 



1. S. Marilandica, L. (MARYLAND PINK-ROOT.) Stems simple and 

 erect from a perennial root (6' -18' high) ; leaves sessile, ovate-lanceolate, 

 acute ; spike simple or forked, short ; tube of the corolla 4 times the length of 

 the calyx, the lobes lanceolate ; anthers and style exserted. Rich woods, 

 Pennsylvania to Wisconsin and southward: not common northward. June, 

 July. Corolla 1^' long, red outside, yell&w within. A well-known officinal 

 anthelmintic, and a showy plant. 



4. MITREOLA, L. MITREWORT. 



Calyx 5-parted. Corolla little longer than the calyx, somewhat funnel-form, 

 5-lobed, valvate in the bud. Stamens 5, included. Ovary at the base slightly 

 adnate to the bottom of the calyx, 2-celled : styles 2, short, converging and 

 united above ; the stigmas also united into one. Pod projecting beyond the 

 calyx, strongly 2-horned or mitre-shaped, opening down the inner side of each 

 horn, many-seeded. Annual smooth herbs, 6' - 2 high, with small stipules 

 between the leaves, and small white flowers spiked along one side of the 

 branches of a terminal petioled cyme. (Name, a little mitre, from the shape 

 of the pod.) 



1. M. petiolata, Torr. & Gray. Leaves thin, oblong- lanceolate, petioled. 

 Damp soil, from Eastern Virginia southward. 



2. M. sessilifolia, Torr. & Gray, with thickish sessile and roundish 

 leaves, probably occurs as far north as Virginia. 



ORDER 79. APOCYNACE^E. (DOGBANE FAMILY.) 



Plants almost all with milky acrid juice, entire (chiefly opposite) leaves 

 without stipules, regular 5-merous and n-androus flowers ; the 5 lobes of the 

 corolla convolute and twisted in the bud ; the filaments distinct, inserted on 

 the corolla, and the pollen granular; the calyx entirely free from the 

 two ovaries, which (in our genera) are distinct (and forming pods), 

 though their styles or stigmas are united into one. Seeds amphitro- 

 pous or anatropous, with a large straight embryo in sparing albumen, 

 often bearing a tuft of down (comose). Chiefly a tropical family (of 

 acrid-poisonous plants), represented in gardens by the Oleander and 

 Periwinkle, and among wild plants by three genera : 



