NETTLE FAMILY. 385 



Flowers monoeciously polygamous, or perfect, with the fila- 

 ments not inflexed in the bud, and 2 diverging styles or long 

 stigmas. Ovary 1-2-celled, with 1 or 2 hanging ovules, in 

 fruit always 1-celled and 1-seeded. 



* Fruit dry, winged or nut-like. Anthers turned outwards. 



1. TTLMUS. Calyx bell-shaped, 4-9-cleft. Stamens 4-9 ; filaments long- and slender. 



Ovary mostly 2-celled, becoming a 1-celled thin samara or key-fruit winged all round 

 (Lessons, Fig. 390). Flowers in clusters in axils of last year's leaves, in early spring, 

 before the leaves of the season, purplish or yellowish-green. Leaves straight-veined, 

 serrate. 



2. PLANERA. Lite Elm, but flowers more polygamous, appearing with the leaves in 



small axillary clusters ; the lobes of the calyx and Btamens only 4 or 5 ; the l-cell»d 

 1-ovuled ovary forming a wingless nut-like fruit. 



* * Fruit a berry-like globular small drupe. Anthers turned inward. 



8. OELTIS. Calyx 5-6-parted, persistent. Stamens 5 or 6. Stigmas very long, tapering. 

 Ovary and drupe 1-celled, 1-seeded. Flowers greenish, in the axils of the leaves ; 

 the lower ones mostly staminate and clustered, the upper fertile and mostly solitary 

 on a Blender peduncle. 



II. HEMP SUBFAMILY. Rough herbs, with watery 

 juice and tough fibrous bark. Leaves mostly opposite and 

 palmately lobed or compound. Flowers dioecious, greenish ; 

 the sterile in axillary loose compound racemes or panicles, the 

 fertile in close clusters or catkins ; calyx of the former with 

 5 sepals, of the latter 1 scale-like sepal embracing the ovary 

 and akene. Stigmas or hairy styles 2, long. 



4. CANNABIS. Erect herb. Stamens 5, drooping. Fertile flowers in irregular spiked 



clusters. Leaves of 5-7 lanceolate irregularly toothed leaflets. 



5. HTJMULTTS. Tall-twining. Stamens erect. Fertile flowers in solitary short catkins 



or spikes, 2 flowers under each of the broad thin bracts which make the scales of the 

 strobile or hop fruit. 



III. FIG SUBFAMILY. Woody plants, generally trees, 

 with milky or colored acrid or poisonous juice. Leaves alter- 

 nate. Flowers strictly monoecious or dioecious. Styles or 

 stigmas commonly 2. 



» Flowers of both kinds mixed, lining the inside of a closed fleshy receptacle, or hollow 

 flower stalk, which ripens into what seems to be a sort of berry. 



6. FICTJ8. Eeceptacle in which the flowers are concealed borne in the axil of the leaves. 



Akene seed-like. Stipules large, successively enveloping the young leaves in the 

 bud, falling off as the leaves expand. (Lessons, Figs. 405, 406, 407.) 

 * * Flowers of the two kinds mostly separate; the fertile crowded in catkin-like spikes 

 or heads, which become fleshy in fruit; filaments inflexed in the bud, spreading 

 elasiically when the calyx expands. 

 1. MACHJEA. Flowers dioecious ; the sterile in racemes, and nearly like those of Mul- 

 berry; the fertile densely crowded in a large spherical head, its calyx of 4 unequal 

 sepals, in fruit inclosing the small akene ; the whole head ripening into a fleshy 

 yellow mass, resembling an orange with a roughish surfaoe. 

 gray's f. P. & G. BOT. 26 



