574 PHYTOLACCACEAE QPOKEWEED FAMILY^ 



spiked and branching panicles ; the calyx, etc., often bearing long wool (whence 

 the name, from elpecujovr]^ a ^\Teath or staff entwined with fillets of wool). 



1. I. paniculata (L.) Ktze. Nearly glabrous, annual, erect, slender (6-12 

 dm. high) ; leaves ovate-lanceolate ; panicles very slender, often broad and 

 diffuse, naked ; bracts and calyx silvery-white, the fertile calyx twice longer 

 than the broad bracts and densely silky-villous at base. (/. celosioides L.) — 

 Dry banks, 0. to Kan., and far southw. Sept. (Trop. regions.) 



5. FROELICHIA Moench. 



Flowers perfect, 3-bracted. Calyx tubular, 5-cleft at the summit, below 2-5- 

 crested lengthwise, or tubercled and indurated in fruit, inclosing the indehiscent 

 thin utricle. Filaments united into a tube, bearing 5 oblong 1-celled anthers, 

 and as many .«terile strap-shaped appendages. — Hairy or woolly herbs, with 

 opposite sessile leaves, and spiked scarious-bracted flowers. (Named for Joseph 

 Aloys Froelich, a German botanist, 1766-1841.) 



1. F. floridana (Nutt.) Moq. Root annual ; stem leafless above (0.3-1.5 m. 

 high) ; leaves lanceolate, silky-downy beneath ; spikelets crowded into an inter- 

 rupted spike ; calyx very woolly, becoming broadly winged, the wings irregu- 

 larly toothed. (Including F. campestris Small.) — Dry sandy places, Del. to 

 Fla. ; and from 111. to Minn., southw. and westw. 



2. F. gracilis Moq. More slender, with narrow leaves, the spikelets smaller, 

 and the crests of the matured calyx of nearly distinct rigid processes. — Prairies 

 of Kan. and Neb. to Col. and Tex. 



6. GOMPHRENA L. 



Flowers perfect, subtended by a bract and two bractlets. Calyx often lanate 

 at the base, its segments more or less unequal, sessile between the bractlets. 

 Fruit a compressed ovoid 1-ovuled utricle. Seed inverted, suspended by a 

 long funicle from the apex of the utricle. — Erect or prostrate herbs, generally 

 rough-pubescent and with swollen nodes. (Altered from Gromphaena, the 

 classical name of some related plant, probably Amaranthus tricolor^ from ypdcpeiv, 

 to xm-ite or to painty in allusion to the variegated leaves.) 



i. G. glob6sa L. (Globe Amaranth, Immortelle.) A low branching 

 pubescent annual with oblong nearly sessile leaves ; flowers in dense round 

 heads, crimson, rose-color, or white. — Common in cultivation, and occasionally 

 escaping to roadsides, etc., O. (Gleason). (Introd. from Trop. Asia.) 



PHYTOLACCACEAE (Pokeweed Family) 



Plants with alternate entire leaves and perfect flowers, having the general 

 characters of Chenopodiaceae, hut usually a several-celled ovary composed of as 

 many carpels united in a ring, and forming a berry in fruit. 



PHYTOLACCA [Tourn.] L. Pokeweed 



Calyx of 5 rounded and petal-like sepals. Stamens 5-30. Ovary of 5-12 carpels 

 united in a ring, with as many short separate styles, in fruit forming a depressed- 

 globose 5-12-celled berry, with a single vertical seed in each cell. Embryo 

 curved in a ring around the albumen. — Tall and stout perennial herbs, with 

 large petioled leaves, and terminal racemes which become lateral and opposite 

 the leaves. (Name compounded of 4>vt6v, plant, and the French lac, lake, in 

 allusion to the crimson coloring matter which the berries yield.) 



1. P. decdndra L. (Common Poke or Score, Garget, Pigeox Berry.) 

 A smooth plant, with a rather unpleasant odor, and a very large poisonous 

 root (often 1-1.5 dm. in diameter) sending up stout stalks at length 2-3 m. 

 high ; calyx white ; stamens and styles 10 ; ovary green ; berries in long racemes, 



