ACANTHACE^E. (ACANTHUS FAMILY.) 29? 



placenta. Flowers much bracted. Calyx 5-cleft. Style thread-form : 

 stigma simple or 2-cleft. Pod loculicidal, usually flattened contrary to the 

 valves and partition. Cotyledons broad and flat. Mucilaginous and 

 slightly bitter, not noxious. A large family in the tropics, represented in 

 the Northern States only by two genera. 



1. DI ANTHER A, Gronov. WATER- WILLOW. 



Calyx 5-parted. Corolla deeply 2-lipped ; the upper lip erect, notched ; the 

 lower spreading, 3-parted. Stamens 2 : anthers 2-celled, the cells placed one 

 lower down than the other. Pod obovate, flattened, contracted at the base into 

 a short stalk, 4-seeded. Perennial herbs, growing hi water, with narrow and 

 entire leaves, and purplish flowers in axillary peduncled spikes or heads. (Name 

 from dis, double, and avfypd, anther; the separated cells giving the appearance 

 of two anthers on each filament.) 



1. D. Americana, L. Leaves linear-lanceolate, elongated ; spikes ob- 

 long, dense, long-peduncled. (Justicia pedunculosa, Michx.) Borders of 

 streams and ponds, N. W. Vermont to Wisconsin, Virginia, and southward. 

 July -Sept. 



2. DIP T ERA CANT HTJS, Nees. (RUELLIA partly, L.) 



Calyx deeply 5-cleft. Corolla funnel-form, the spreading ample limb almost 

 equally and regularly 5-cleft. Stamens 4, included, didynamous : cells of the 

 somewhat arrow-shaped anthers parallel and nearly equal. Pod somewhat flat- 

 tened, and stalked at the base, 8 - 12-seeded. Seeds with a mucilaginous coat- 

 ing. Perennial herbs, not aquatic, with ovate or elliptical nearly entire leaves, 

 and large and showy blue or purple flowers, solitary, few, or clustered in the axils, 

 with a pair of leafy bracts (whence the name, from biirrcpos, tivo-winged, and 

 aicav0os, the Acanthus). 



1. D. CiliOSUS, Nees. Hirsute with soft whitish hairs (l-3 high) ; 

 leaves nearly sessile, oval or ovate-oblong (l'-2' long) ; flowers 1-3 and almost 

 sessile in the axils ; tube of the corolla (!'- l' long) fully twice the length of the 

 setaceous calyx-lobes; the throat short. (Ruellia ciliosa, Pursh. R. hybridus, 

 Pursh., is only a Southern variety of this.) Dry soil, Michigan to Illinois, and 

 southward. June - Sept. 



2. 1>. StrepCUS, Nees. Glabrous or sparingly pubescent (l-4high); 

 leaves nan-owed at the base into a petiole, ovate, obovate, or mostly oblong (2^' -5' 

 long) ; tube of the corolla (about 1' long) little longer than the dilated portion, 

 slightly exceeding the lanceolate or linear calyx-lobes. Flowers 1 - 5 in each axil, 

 rarely on a slender peduncle, usually almost sessile ; sometin.es many and closely 

 crowded, and mostly fruiting in the bud, the corolla small and not expanding 

 (when it is D. micranthus, Engelm. $ Gr.). Rich soil, Pennsylvania to Wis- 

 consin, and southward. July - Sept. 



DiCLfrTERA BRACHIATA, Sprcng. (Justicia bracbiata. Pursh), probably 

 grows in the south eru part of Virginia. 



