88 LEGUMINOS^. (pulse FAMILY.) 



13. P. pancifolia, Willd. Perennial; flowering stems short (3'-4 

 high), and leafy chiefly at the summit, rising from long and slender prostrate oi 

 subterranean shoots, which also bear concealed fertile flowers ; lower leaves 

 small and scale-like, scattered ; the upper leaves ovate, pelioled, crowded; flowers 

 1-3, huge, peduncled; wings obovate, rather shorter than the conspiouonsly 

 fringe-crested keel ; stamens 6 ; canincle of 2 - 3 awl-shaped lobes longer than 

 the seed. — Woods in light soil; not rare northward, extending southward 

 along the Alleghanies. May. — A delicate plant, with large and very hand- 

 some flowers, I' long, rose-pui-ple, or rarely pure white. Sometimes called 

 Flowering Wintergreen, but more appropriately Fringed PoI/TGALA. 



Order 38. LEGUMINOS^. (Pulse Family.) 



Plants wiih papilionaceous or sometimes regular flowers, 10 (rarely 5, and 

 sometimes many') monadelphous, diadelplious, or rarely distinct stamens, and 

 a single simple free pistil, becoming a legume in fruit. Seeds without 

 albumen. Leaves alternate, witJi stipules, usually compound. One of the 

 sepals inferior (i. e. next the bract) ; one of the petals superior (i. e. 

 next the axis of the inflorescence). — A very large order (nearly free fi-om 

 noxious qualities), of which the principal representatives in this and 

 other northern temperate regions belong to the first of the three sub- 

 orders it comprises. 



SuBOHDEK I. PAPILIONACE.iE. The proper Pulse Family. 



Calyx of 5 sepals, more or less united, often unequally so. Corolla pe- 

 rigynous (inserted into the base of the calyx), of 5 irregular petals (or very 

 rarely fewer), imbricated in the bud, more or less distinctly ^opiKonaceoiiS, 

 i. e. with the upper or odd petal, called the vexUlum or standard, larger 

 than the others and enclosing them in the bud, usually turned backward or 

 spreading ; the two lateral ones, called the wings, oblique and exterior to 

 the two lower petals, which last are connivent and commonly more or less 

 coherent by their anterior edges, forming a body named the carina or keel, 

 from its resemblance to the keel or prow of a boat, and which usually en- 

 closes the stamens and pistil. Stamens 10, very rarely 6, inserted with the 

 corolla, monadelphous, diadelphous (mostly with 9 united in one set in a 

 tube which is cleft on the upper side, i. e. next the standard, and the tenth 

 or upper one separate), or occasionally distinct. Ovary 1-oelled, sometimes 

 2-celled by an infolding of one of the sutures, or transversely many-celled 

 by cross-division into joints : style simple : ovules amphitropous, very rare- 

 ly anatropous. Cotyledons large, thick or thickish : radicle almost always 

 incurved. — Leaves simple or simply compound, the earliest ones in germi- 

 nation usually opposite, the rest alternate : leaflets almost always quite en- 

 tire. Flowers perfect, solitary and axillary, or in spikes, racemes, or pan- 

 icles. 



