440 ASCLEPIADACEAE apocynum 



ASCLEPIAS 



A. androsaemifolium L. Sp. 213. Stem erect with divergent branches, 

 6-18 inches high, from deep-seated perennial roots : leaves ovate or round- 

 ish, 1-4 inches long, abruptly and setaceously callous-mucronate, con- 

 spicuously petioled, pale and more or less pubescent beneath: flowers 

 very fragrant, in open cymes; pedicels 2-3 lines long, subulate-bracted at 

 the base; corolla open-campanulate, about 4 lines broad, its tube much 

 longer than the ovate acute lobes of the calyx, its short lobes recurved; 

 mature follicles 3-5 inches long. In dry open woods, California to Alaska 

 and the Eastern States. 



Var. pumilum Gray Syn. Fl. ii, 82. Low: leaves roundish. Brit. 

 Columbia to California. 



A. cannabinum L. Sp. 213. Stems erect or ascending, 1-6 feet high, 

 with ascending branches, glabrous, or sometimes soft-pubescent, leafy to 

 the top : leaves from oval to oblong or even lanceolate, with rounded or 

 subcordate base, short petioled or sessile 2-6 inches long: cymes erect, 

 densely flowered: corolla greenish-white or slightly flesh-colored its lobes 

 almost erect, the tube not longer than the lanceolate calyx-lobes : follicles 

 slender, 2-3 inches long. Moist meadows, California to Brit. Columbia 

 and the Eastern States. 



Order LXI ASCLEPIADACEAE Lindl. Nat. Syst. ed. 3, 303. 



Mostly herbs with milky juice, usually opposite leaves with- 

 out stipules, and regular perfect flowers in terminal or pseudo- 

 axillary or sometimes axillary cymes ; often umbelliform. Calyx 

 free from the ovary or nearly so, imbricated in the bud. Corolla 

 5-merous, convolute, or often nearly valvate in the bud. Stamens 

 5, borne on the tube of the corolla and alternate with its lobes: 

 anthers surrounding the stigma. Pollen in 1 or 3 waxy masses, 

 in ours all the pollen in each cell in one mass and attached to 

 the stigmatic disk by the glands that alternate with the anthers. 

 A crown of 5 parts or lobes usually present between the corolla 

 and the mostly monadelphous stamens, and adnate either to the 

 one or the other. Ovary of 3 cells that become follicles, or by 

 abortion, one several to many-seeded follicle. Seeds almost 

 always bearing a long and soft coma. Embryo nearly as long 

 as the seed, in mostly thin, cartilaginous albumen. 



Flowers with a hooded appendage behind each anther. 



1 Asclepias An incurved horn or projecting crest from the cavity of 



each hooded appendage. 



2 Gomphocarpus Hooded appendages without horns or crests. 



1 ASCLEPIAS L. Gen. n. 306. 

 Herbs with erect or merely spreading stems from deep and 

 thickened perennial roots, opposite or sometimes verticillate or 

 alternate leaves and terminal and lateral umbellate inflorescence. 

 Calyx 5-parted, commonly bearing some minute processes at the 

 base within. Corolla rotate, 5-parted, dextrorsely valvate-con- 

 volute in the bud. Crown consisting of 5 distinct cucullate or 

 hollowed nectariferous appendages, opposite the anther.s, that are 

 involute or complicate and bearing a horn or crest-like pro-ts;. 



