DICOTYLEDONOUS PLANTS. 31 



IV. LATHYRUS, SWEET PEA, WILD PEA. 



Herbs, climbing by means of tendrils which terminate the 

 petiole (as in Eig. 159). Leaves of 1 to several pairs of 

 leaflets. Peduncles axillary, bearing 1 to several flowers, 

 which are often very showy. Calyx bell-shaped. Stamens 

 diadelphous (Fig. 161, I). Corolla decidedly papilionaceous 

 (Fig. 159). Style flat, bent at a right angle, hairy along the 

 inner side. Pod several-seeded (Fig. 161, II, III). 



a. (L. ODORATUs), Sweet Pea. Stem roughish-hairy, it and the 

 petioles winged, leaflets only one pair, oval or oblong (Fig. Ill) ; 

 flowers large, 2 or 3 on the long peduncles, sweetscented, white, rose- 

 color, purple, or variegated. Annual, cultivated from Europe. 



6. (L. MARiTiMUS), Beach Pea. Stem stout, 1-2 ft. high; stipules 

 broadly ovate and heart or halberd shaped, nearly as large as the 6-12 

 leaflets, of which the lower pair is the largest ; tendrils much as in the 

 sweet pea; flowers large, blue or purple. A seashore perennial herb. 



c. (L. PALUSTKis.) Stem frequently winged, slender, and climbing 

 by delicate tendrils at the ends of the leaves ; stipules narrow and 

 pointed ; leaflets 4-8, narrowly oblong to linear, acute ; peduncles 

 bearing 2-6 pretty large, drooping, blue, purple, and white flowers. 



EUPHORBIACE.a;, SPURGE FA.AIILY. 



Plants usually with a milky, more or less acrid and some- 

 times poisonous juice and mostly apetalous, moncBcious or 

 dioecious flowers ; the ovary usually 3-celled, with, one or 

 two ovules in each cell ; stigmas as many as the cells or 

 twice as many \ fruit a 3-lobed capsule ; seeds containing 

 fleshy or oily endosperm (Fig. 1). Most of the family are 

 natives of hot regions, many of them of peculiar aspect from 

 their adaptation to life in dry climates (Fig. 89). The family 

 is too difiicult for the beginner in botany to determine many 

 of its genera and species with certainty. 



MALVACE.^;, MALLOW FAMILY. 



Herbs or shrubs with simple, alternate, palmately-veined 

 leaves, with stipules. Flowers regular, with 6 sepals, often 

 surrounded by an involucre at the base, 5 petals, numerous 



