BRIEFER ARTICLES. 
Observations on the spider flower.—Cleome spinosa L. is a tropical 
American annual, which has long been cultivated in flower-gardens 
for its curious spider-shaped flowers. In this vicinity it has escaped 
to rich neglected places about dwellings. Its especial choice is a 
neglected wood-yard or some uncultivated rich spot just outside the 
barnyard. I have in mind several such places where it has appeared 
annually for the past twenty years, so that it may be said that it is 
thoroughly “introduced.” The plant begins to bloom in July, and 
continues until frost. It attains a height of from four to six feet; the 
branches are long and spreading or drooping. ‘The inflorescence is 
centripetal and terminal, and consists of long lax spikes of purplish- 
pink spreading flowers. The bracts are large and foliaceous in the 
fruiting spike. The peduncles are usually 33™ long; the stipes are 
slender and about 55"" long; the pod, when ripe, is near 50™™ long 
There is a row of seeds along the ventral and another along the dorsal 
side of the pod or legume. When mature the valves fall off, the seeds 
are dropped and scattered, but the ribs along which the seeds grew 
remain; these with the stipes and peduncles are spreading and slightly 
pendent on the rachis. See F ig. 1. There are four sepals which are 
8™" long, and are reflected when the flowers are opened; they are 
early deciduous. The petals are four in number, 33™™ long, ovate- 
oblong and clawed; their attachment to the torus takes up about 
four-fifths of a circle, the lower fifth is not occupied. When fully 
opened they spread outwards and upwards at an angle of about 45°) 
so that their outer points form about two-fifths of a circle; the lower 
three-fifths of the circle being occupied by the stamens, the two form- 
ing an inverted cone whose apex is at the torus. The stamens are 
usually 55™™ Jong, six in number, and are arranged in two sets of three 
each; one set on each side of the pistil, They spread outwards at the 
same angle that the petals do, and fill up the lower three-fifths of the 
cone formed by them and the petals. The pistil stands in the center 
of the cone formed by the four petals and six stamens; it varies in 
length, when the flowers first open, from 12to 80™™. The pistils develop 
in two series; for several successive days there will be only short 
or sterile ones, then for a number of days only long or fertile ones 
on a given spike. All the pods contain immature and unimpreg- 
nated ovules when the flowers first open, but the pistils that are 
short do not develop further, and soon the whole flower drops off, 
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