GERANIACE^:. (GERANIUM FAMILY.) 105 



or the lower spatulate and often opposite; flowers scattered, small (barely 3" 

 long) ; sepals ovate, pointed, smooth-edged or nearly so, equalling the depressed 

 10-celled pod; styles distinct. — Dry woods : common. — Root apparently an- 

 nual ; but the plant propagated by suckers from the base of the stem. 



2. L. Striatum, Walt. Stems gregarious, erect or ascending from a creep- 

 ing or decumbent base, slightly viscid, and with the mostly' racemose short 

 branches striate with about 4 sharp wing-like angles decurrent from the leaves; 

 these broader than in the last, and mostly oblong, usually with all the lower 

 ones opposite ; flowers more crowded ; sepals scarcely equalling the very small 

 brownish pod : otherwise nearly as in No. 1 . (L. oppositifolium, Engelm.) — Wet 

 or boggy grounds, New England to Virginia and southward. — Generally con- 

 founded with L. Virginianum (figured for it in Reichenb. Ic. Exot.), but well 

 distinguished by Walter, except that the stem-leaves are commonly opposite up 

 to the first branch : here described from the indications given by C. F. Austin. 



3. L. sulcatum, Riddell, 1836. Stem strictly erect from an annual root, 

 and with the upright or ascending branches striate-angled or grooved ; leaves 

 linear, acute, or the upper subulate, rather rigid ; a pair of dark glands in place 

 of stipules : sepals ovate-lanceolate and sharp-pointed, strongly 3-nerved and 

 (like the bracts) with rough-bristly-glandular margins, scarcely longer than the 

 ovoid-globose incompletely 10-celled pod ; styles united almost to the middle. 

 (L. Boottii, Planchon, 1848.) — Dry soils, Rhode Island to Illinois and south- 

 westward. — Flowers and pods twice as large as in the preceding. (L. rigidlm, 

 Pursh., of the Western plains, probably in Minnesota, is dwarf, glaucous, and 

 has the styles united almost to the top.) 



* * Escaping from cultivation, blue-flowered, annucd. 



4. L. usitatissimum, L. (CoMiiox Flax), is occasionally spontaneous in 

 fields. 



Order 24. GERArVIACE^E. (Geranium Family.) 



Plants (chiefly herbs') with perfect and generally symmetrical hypogynous 

 flowers ; the stamens, counting sterile f laments, as many or commonly twice 

 as many, and the lobes or cells (1 -few-ovuled) of the ovary as many, as 

 the sepals, an axis of the dry fruit persisting. — Seeds without albumen, 

 except in Oxalis. The flower of Impatiens is partly, and that of Tropa> 

 olurn still more unsymmetrical. Herbage often strong-scented, but never 

 punctate with pellucid dots. — As a whole the order, here recombined 

 as it was founded by Jussieu, is hard to define. Of late it has generally 

 been broken into several small orders : the principal ones here stand as 

 suborders, with only one or two genera to each. — Trop.eolum, the 

 Garden Nasturtium, occupies a position between the first and the 

 second suborder. 



Suborder I. GERANIE^E. (Geranium Family proper.) 



Flowers 5-merous and symmetrical ; the persistent sepals imbricated 

 and the petals usually convolute in the bud : 5 glands of the receptacle 



