286 



DICOTYLEDONS. 



me-not belongs fo this family. The flowers are borne in a curved and more or 

 less one-sided (helicoid) cyme as shown in fig. 383. 

 The plant grows in wet low ground. The flower 

 stalks are forked, and continue to grow and 

 blossom all through the summer. The corolla 

 is rotate (wheel-shaped), the spreading blue 

 lobes with a yellow scale on each at the throat of 

 the tube. Alternating with these scales are the 

 five short stamens. The ovary is four-divided, 

 and in fruit forms four nutlets. 



Fig. 384. 

 Spray of dead-nettle (Lamium am- 

 plexicaule), leaves and flowers. 



NUCULIFERvE. 



547. Lesson XVII. The mint 

 family (labiatse). — The mint 

 family contains a large number 

 of genera and takes its common 

 name from the mints, of which 

 there are several species belong- 

 ing to the genus mentha. In the figure of the " dead-nettle " 

 (Lamium amplexicaule), which is also one of the members of 

 this family, we see that the lobes of the irregular corolla are 

 arranged in such a manner as to suggest two lips, an upper and 

 a lower one. From this character of the corolla, which obtains 

 in nearly all the members, the family receives its name of 

 Labiates. The calyx is five-lobed. The stamens, four in number, 

 arise from the tube of the corolla, and converge in pairs. The 

 ovary is divided into four lobes, and at the maturity of the seed 



