CLASS V. ORDER I. 93 



102. TRIOSTEUM. 



Triosteum perfoliatum. L. Fever root. 



American Medical Botany, PI. ix. 



Leaves connate, flowers sessile, whorled. 

 Syn. Triosteum majus. Mr. 



The root of this plant is perennial and subdivided into nume- 

 rous horizontal branches. The stem is erect, hairy, fistulous, 

 round, from one to four feet high. Leaves opposite, the pairs 

 crossing each other, connate, ovate, acuminate, entire, rather 

 flat, abruptly contracted at base into a sort of neck, resembling 

 a winged petiole, of variable width. In general this is narrow 

 when the plant is in flower, and wider when it is in fruit. The 

 flowers are axillary, sessile, five or six in a whorl, the upper 

 ones generally in a single pair. Each axil is furnished with 

 two or three linear bractes. The calyx consists of five segments 

 which are spreading, oblong-linear, colored, unequal, persistent. 

 Corolla tubular, curving, of a dull brownish purple, covered with 

 minute hairs, its base gibbous, its border open and divided into 

 five rounded, unequal lobes. Stamens inserted in the tube of 

 the corolla ; stigma peltate. The fruit is an oval berry of a 

 deep orange yellow, hairy, somewhat three sided, crowned with 

 the calyx, containing three cells, and three hard, bony, furrowed 

 seeds, from which the name of the genus is taken. — Woods, 

 Mount Auburn, Cambridge. — June. — Perennial. 



The root is medicinal. 



103. RIBES. 

 RiBEs TRiFLORUM. Willcl. Wild Goosehevry. 



Thorn subaxillary ; leaves smooth, three or five 

 lobed, ciU-toothed ; peduncles about three flowered; 

 pedicels elongated ; petals spatulate, undulate, style 

 hairy, semibifid, exserted ; berries smooth. Willd. 



The buds of this species produce at flowering time a small 

 tuft of leaves with two or three bell shaped flowers. Petioles 

 ciliate. Leaves smooth above, pubescent beneath. Calyx green, 

 its segments reflexed. Petals white, erect, nearly truncated. 



