yo Introduction to Botany 



Xn. DESMANTHUS. 



(Gr., destna, a band; anthoSj flower.) 



Perennial herbs or shrubs, with bipinnate leaves and small, regular, 

 greenish, or whitish flowers in peduncled, axillary heads or spikes, per- 

 fect or polygamous. Calyx campanulate, 5-toothed. Petals 5 and dis- 

 tinct or slightly coherent below. Stamens 10 or 5, distinct, exserted. 

 Pod flat, several-seeded. 



I. Desmanthus brachylobus, Benth. (Gr., brachys, short ; lobos, lobe.) Stems 

 I to 3 feet high, ascending or erect, nearly or quite glabrous. Pinnas 6-15 pairs. 

 Leaflets 20-30 pairs. Stamens 5. Pods curved, oblong, or lanceolate, in globose 

 heads. Prairies and river banks. 



GERANIACE.ffi;. Geranium Family. 



Chiefly herbs, with perfect and mostly symmetrical flowers. Parts 

 of the flower usually in 5's. Stamens commonly as many or twice as 

 many as the sepals, often 5 long and 5 short. Ovary 5-lobed and 

 5-ceUed. Axis of the dry fruit persisting. 



I. GERANIUM. Cranesbill. 



(Gr., geranos, a crane, from fancied resemblance of the long carpels to a beak of the crane.) 



Herbs with palmately lobed, parted, or divided leaves, and flowers 

 on axillary i-few-flowered peduncles. Stamens 10, 5 long and 5 short. 

 Sepals and petals 5, imbricated in the bud. Ovary 5-lobed and 5-celled, 

 beaked by the compound style ; ovules 2 in each cavity. Carpels 

 breaking away from the central axis in dehiscence. 



I. Geranium maculatum, L. (L., maciilatus, spotted.) Wild or Spotted 

 Cranesbill. Perennials with a thick rootstock. i to 2 feet high, branching 

 above ; pubescent, with more or less spreading hairs. Basal leaves long-petioled, 

 deeply 3-s-parted. Stem leaves shorter, but similar. Petals \ inch long, light 

 purple, bearded on the .claw. Sepals hairy and awn-pointed. Carpels pubescent. 

 Woods. 



■i,. Geranium Carolini^num, L. Carolina Cranesbill. Annuals, 6 to 15 

 inches high, branched from the base, diffuse, loosely pubescent. Leaves 5-9- 

 parted, the divisions cleft into somewhat linear lobes. Flowers whitish or pale 

 rose, in compact clusters ; peduncles and pedicels short and hairy. Beak of the 

 hispid-pubescent ovary nearly i inch long. In barren soil and waste places. 



