THE MILKWEED FAMILY. 435 



THE MILKWEED FAMILY. 



A sclcp ia da cccc. 



Shrubs, vines or pereimial herbs usuaUy icith milky jiiiee, opposite, 

 alternate or whorled leaves and distinctively formed Jloiuers luhich grow 

 in umbels or cymes, and are regular and perfect. 



WHITE niLKWEED. {Plate CXLVI.) 

 Asclepias 7>ariegdta. 



Flowers: growing in dense, terminal or lateral, mostly pubescent umbels. 

 Calyx: five-parted. Corolla: wlieel-shaped, the oval segments strongly refle.xed. 

 The so-called and central crown composed of five upright, spreading lobes, or 

 nectaries under which are borne five pointed, incurved horns. Statnens : five, 

 their fringed tips united and enclosing the pistils. Anthers: attached to the 

 filaments by their bases. Pollen in distinct little masses, attached by a thread- 

 like substance. Pistils: two, their stigmas united to form the flat, sticky disk. 

 Fruit : a pair of pods, enclosing numerous seeds surrounded by silky hairs, and 

 one of which is often undeveloped. Leaves: opposite or verticillate, oval, 

 obovate or ovate, bluntly pointed at the apex, pointed or mostly unequally 

 rounded at the base, paler below than on the upper surface; entire; glabrous; 

 thick. Stejn : one to three feet high ; simple, stout, glabrous at maturity, pur- 

 plish. 



Happily for us a good Providence has made these plants very abundant 

 and of wide distribution over the country ; for, although they are stigmatised 

 as weeds, where shall we find a genus of more sturdy, vigorous personality, 

 or often with more gorgeous heads of flowers ? So intricate in construction 

 are the individual blossoms that not only does the fact make them readily 

 recognisable, but it gives them a unique interest. Primarily, they seem to 

 have been devised to lure into themselves bees, which are necessary to carr)' 

 the pollen-masses from one blossom to another, as these rest too low in the 

 crown ever to be able of themselves to touch the stigma. But even these 

 clumsy creatures do not give their services for nothing. They have appetites 

 which must be pampered, and so under the hoods is provided a feast of nectar 

 which naturally could not be held by the refle.xed corolla-lobes. After sip- 

 ping to satiety, then, the poor old things move off, often with the filmy 

 threads of the pollen masses entangled about their legs. Unconsciously then 

 they shake them off on the stigma of another flower, and the wheels are set in 

 motion which later in the season show us so many bursting pods and out- 



L floating seeds tufted as softly as with nestle-down. 

 Usually in dry, open woods we find this species with its milk-\vhi;e top- 



