POLEMONIUM REPTANS. 
CREEPING GREEK VALERIAN. 
NATURAL ORDER, POLEMONIACE, 
POLEMONIUM REPTANS, Linnzeus.—Smooth and succulent; branched and leaning; leaflets five 
to eleven, usually seven to nine, mostly opposite, the terminal one lance-obovate, about 
an inch long; common petiole half an inch to two inches in length below the leaflets, 
slightly winged, pubescert-ciliate; corymbs few-flowered, nodding; corolla blue, about 
three times as long as the calyx; the lobes short, obovate, rounded. Capsule on a short 
stipe, in the enlarged, persistent, veined, green, and somewhat membranous calyx. (Dar- 
lington’s Flora Cestrica. See also Gray’s Manual of the Botany of the Northern United 
States, Chapman’s Alora of the Southern United States, and Wood's Class- Book of Botany.) 
HE Greek Valerians, known botanically as Polemonium, 
3) form a genus of great interest to the American student, 
hand been selected by Jussieu, one of the chief founders of the 
natural system of Botany, as the type of the natural order /%ole- 
moniacee. The original Greek Valerian, Polemonium ceruleum, 
is a native of northern Europe and Asia; but it is also indige- 
nous to our own country, and by far the greater bulk’ of the 
whole order are American. Indeed, we may regard Polemoniacce 
as in the main an American order of plants. Botanists regard 
them as somewhat allied in structure to the Bind-weeds or Con- 
volvilacee—but they are very different in their aspect. On the 
other hand, they have much the general appearance of the 
flydrophyllacee or “water-leaf” family, but differ essentially in 
placentation, or manner in which the seeds are connected with 
the ovarium. In Polemoniacee the placenta is axile, while 
Hydrophyllacee it is central, in which case the seeds do not seem 
attached to the sides of the capsule, but to a soft mass in the 
centre. The two great genera of the eastern United States are 
