^ THE MTLKWKKI) TAMILV. 437 



pling heads of bloom. Sentiment, which, it is said, casts the verdict, calls it 

 a weed, Mciy all such be as beautiful ! 



yi. quadrifblia, four-lcavcd milkweed, one of the delicate, slender species 

 of wooded slopes and hillsides, bears its leaves in an opposite way or some- 

 times verticillate in fours. Mostly they are ovate-lance(jlate and ia|)er into 

 margined petioles. The flowers on long, thread-like and pubescent 

 pedicels are either pink or white, and but rarely the stem becomes over two 

 feet high. 



A. titbcrbsa, butterlly-wced, pleurisy, or orange-root are among the names 

 commonly used for this most gorgeous member in a more than usually 

 beautiful genus. Its full, abundant heads of flowers continue to open from 

 June until September, when, near and far, in thick rounded clumps, they illu- 

 minate the country like balls of orange-red flame. With the exception, 

 however, of its bloom, the plant is coarse and weedy-looking, its alternate, 

 lanceolate leaves growing closely together and being covered underneath, as 

 is the thick stem, with a hirsute pubescence. Even above they are rough to 

 the touch. Unfortunately, through the south the plant is somewhat out of 

 favour, for red-bugs, or chiggers, fairly infest it. Even urchins know this 

 well enough to call out to the uninitiated : " Yer'll git chiggers on yer, if yer 

 don't look out." 



A. cmerea, ashy milkweed, exclusively an inhabitant of the south, is found 

 through the pine-barren region from Florida to North Carolina. There its 

 umbels are noticed to be rather sparingly flowered, and the individual blos- 

 soms, while purplish without, are within of an ashen hue. Through its 

 opposite, linear and rather rigid leaves, also, the plant has a more scraggly 

 look than is usually presented by the milkweeds. Near Jacksonville, I came 

 on several of them when their very slender pods were bursting. Each of 

 the seeds was found to be winged all around and surrounded by very long, 

 silky tufts of hairs. 



A. verticiUata, w^horled milkweed, which has an extent of range from 

 Florida to Maine and New Mexico and is found generally in dry exposures. 

 is known through its umbels of greenish white flowers produced abundantly 

 from the axils as well as at the ends of its leafy stalks. Moreover the 

 leaves are narrowly linear, sessile and grow in a verticillate way about the 

 stem. Often towards its summit the plant is much branched. 



A. iiicarnata, swamp milkweed, recalls a crimson species, its heads being 

 rather small. It grows in swamps and other low, wet places. Throughout 

 it is quite smooth or merely puberulent near the summit, seldom over three 

 feet high, and is moreover possessed of very little milky juice. Its leaves 

 are slender, lanceolate, and the pods, which grow several in a cluster, are 

 very small but unusually pretty. 



