472 THE TRUMPET-CREEPER FAMILY. 



touched with yellow produce wonderful, decorative effects wherever it grows. 

 By Mr. W. R. Smith we are told that Europeans call it the " humming-bird 

 vine," as it is so much visited by these birds. But the southern natives have 

 no such poetical idea of it: they call it devil's shoestrings because its interlaced 

 growth hinders their progress, or even more contemptuously, " cowitch," in 

 reference to the belief that when cows eat of it the effect on their milk is 

 harmful. Quite generally they regard it as poisonous. In fact they 

 approach it with much more caution than they do poison ivy. 



Catdlpa Catdlpa, Indian bean or candle-tree, represents the trumpet 

 creeper family as a large, well rounded tree which in a wild state occurs 

 through the woods of the gulf states and especially along the river-banks of 

 Florida and Georgia. But northward in many places it is now abundantly 

 planted. From its relatives, the vines, it differs in having large, simple 

 leaves, cordate in outline and entire. When covered in June with great, 

 terminal panicles of exquisite white flowers, touched with yellow and 

 dotted with purple, it seems that it must attract the attention of all, even 

 those flower seekers whose eyes are chained to the ground, and again in the 

 late season it is very conspicuous, being hung with slim pods sometimes a 

 foot lono:. 



THE ACANTHUS FAMILY. 



AcantJiacccE, 



I?i our species herbs with simple^ opposite leaves,and7vhich hear perfect, 

 nearly regular or irregular flowers their corollas being gamopetalous^ 

 either five-lob ed or two-lipped. 



SnOOTH RUELLIA. 



Rucllia strepens. 



FAMILY COLOUR ODOUR RANGE TIME OF BLOOM 



Acanthus. Blue. Scentless. Texas aytd Florida to Pennsylvania May-Atigust. 



and westward. 



Flowers: mostly solitary or occasionally a few together growing from the axils of 

 the leaves. Calyx: five-parted, the segments linear-lanceohite, pointed, covered 

 with fine white hairs. Corolla: salver-shaped, the tube long, and the limb spread- 

 ing in five rounded lobes, entire or slightly notched at the apex. Stamejis : four. 

 Pistil : one; style, recurved. Leaves: oval, or oblong, pointed at the apex and nar- 

 rowed at the base into margined petioles, delicately ciliate along the margin and 

 sparsely covered above and along the veins below with fine hairs. Smaller leaves 

 also often growing in the axils. Stei7i: one to four feet, simple, or branchedj 

 eiegt four-angled; smooth, 



