CLASS VI. ORDER I. I39 



152. ALETRIS. 



Aletris farinosa. Star Grass. 



American Medical Botany, PI. I. 



Flowers pedicelled, oblong-tubular, somewhat 

 wrinkled in fruit ; leaves broad lanceolate. 



This plant has a single circle of radical leaves, sessile, nerved, 

 lanceolate, smooth. Stena or scape from one to three feet high, 

 invested with remote scales, which sometimes expand into small 

 leaves. The flowers form a slender, scattered spike with very 

 short pedicels and minute bractes. Calyx none. Corolla white, 

 oblong bell shaped, divided at the mouth into six acute, spread- 

 ing segments. The outside, particularly as the flower grows 

 old, has a roughish, wrinkled or mealy appearance, by which the 

 specific name was suggested. Stamens short, inserted near the 

 mouth of the corolla at the base of the segments. The circum- 

 stance of their being opposite to the segments, and not alternate 

 with them, affords a distinguishing mark of this genus. An- 

 thers somewhat heart shaped. Germ pyramidal, half inferior, 

 tapering: style triangular, separable into three. Capsule invest- 

 ed with the permanent corolla, triangular, three celled, three 

 valved at top. Seeds numerous, minute, fixed to a central re- 

 ceptacle. — The root is intensely bitter. — In low grounds, Bridge- 

 water. — July. — Perennial. 



153. STREPTOPUS. 

 Streptopus distortus. Mx. Curling Streptopus. 



Smooth, leaves clasping ; pedicels solitary, genicu- 

 late and contorted in the middle. 

 Syn. UvuLARiA amplexifolia. Willd. 



"Whole plant glabrous. Stem round, branching. Leaves 

 clasping, to appearance perfoliate, oblong acuminate, glaucous 

 underneath. Peduncles opposite the leaves, turning downwards, 

 filiform, contorted. Flowers bell shaped, greenish white, the 

 petals reflexed, gibbous at base, where the stamens are inserted. 

 Fruit scarlet, oblong, many seeded. — Woods, in the western 

 parts of Massachusetts. — June. — Perennial. 



