SOLANACEAE 



NIGHTSHADE FAMILY 



MATRIMONY VINE 



Lycium halimi folium Mill. 



The Matrimony Vine is another member of the Nightshade 

 family not native but introduced from Europe as an ornamental 

 plant. It is a climbing or trailing shrub which is often used for 

 covering fences, stumps or other unsightly 

 objects, and which in many places has es- 

 caped to waste lands and thickets. It is 

 found locally from Ontario to Virginia and 

 west to Minnesota and Kansas, 



The branched, often spiny stems are 

 6-25 feet long. The branches are somewhat 

 angled and the spines, when present, are 

 slender and about one-half inch long. 



The flowers are produced from May to 

 August, either solitary or 2-5 in the axils of 

 leaves. The bell-shaped calyx is 3-5- 

 toothed or lobed and persists at the base of 

 the fruit. Very often it is somewhat de- 

 formed by small insect galls on its surface. 

 The funnel-shaped 5-lobed corolla is at 

 first purple and fades to greenish as it gets 

 old. The 5 stamens are attached near the 

 upper end of the corolla tube, the filaments 

 being somewhat hairy at the base. There is 

 I pistil with a 2-celled ovary and a slender 

 style. The fruit is a bright orange-red oval 

 berry about one-half inch long or less, and 

 half as thick. These very pretty berries are 

 not edible to man but they are undoubtedly 

 eaten bv birds. 



The poppy tosses here its torch, 



And the tall bee-balm flaunts its fire, 



And regally the larkspur lifts 



The slender azure of its spire. 



And from the phlox and mignonette 

 Rich attars drift on every hand; 



And when star-vestured twilight comes 

 The pale moths weave a saraband. 



A Midsummer Garden — Clinton Scollard 



297 



