THE ACANTHUS FAMILV. 473 



Many a dry, bare spot throui^^h ilie thickets shows a gleam of bk,c which 

 when approached is found to be these attractive flowers, boldly thrust forth 

 from the plant's leaf axils. When near by there grow also the starry cam- 

 pion, the fire pink with perhaps the first of the golden asters and a large army 

 of spurges, the company is at once gay and brilliant, oi pure and bright 

 colours. Hardly have we had another (lower with personality anything like 

 the ruellia's. As we travel northward it is one which we saiily miss from 

 the flora. 



A\ cilibsa, hairy ruellia, while very similar to its relative, is covered almost 

 throughout with a hairy pubescence, and a specific difference is that its 

 thread-like calyx segments exceed the capsule greatly in length. 



Diaiithcra Americana, dense-flowered water willow, shows us another 

 form of the Acanthus family and is one which we find growing in shallow 

 water or very wet places. The corolla of the violet or nearly white llower 

 is slender and strongly two-lipped, the upper-lip covering the two stamens. 

 while a number of them grow in a head-like spike at the end of a long, 

 axillary peduncle. Its linear-lanceolate leaves suggest somewhat thos<- of a 

 willow. 



THE MADDER FAMILY. 



Ritbiacccr. 



Trees, shrubs or herbs with mostly siinph\ op/>osife, stipulate leaves, 

 rarely whorled, ami 7viiich bear perfect, regular, dimorphous or eien 

 trimorphous Jhnvcrs 7c>ith gauiopetalous corollas, their stameus inserted 

 oil the throat or tube and alternate with the lobes. 



THYME=LEAVED BLUETS, (riate CLl'/f.) : 



Houstbnia serpyllijblia. 



FAMILY COLOUR ODOUR RANGE TIME OF BLOOM 



Madder. Dee/> blue, iviik Scentless. South diyolina iiiid Tennessee A/>>tl-.l ugust. 

 yellozv centre. to I 'ir^inia. 



Flowers: dimorphous ; terminal at the end of thread-like, terminal and axil- 

 lary peduncles. Catyx : four-lobed. Corolla : salver-shaped, with f<uir oval, 

 spreading lobes, the tube slender. Stamens: four, on the cort)lla. J'lstil : «)nc; 

 style, compound. Capsule: globose, depressed at the top aiul being above free 

 from the calyx. Leaves: very small ; orbicular, or broadly ovate, obtusely pointed 

 at the apex, and abruptly squared or terminatccl by the petiole at the base ; those 

 occurring near the flower being often longer and narrower; smooth. Stems: crce;)- 

 ing ; prostrate; branching ; glabrous, 



