134 FOUNDATIONS OF BOTANY 



n. PTELEA, L. 



Shrubs with smooth and. bitter bark. Leaves with 3 leaflets. 

 Flowers in terminal cymes, somewhat monoecious. Sepals 

 3-6, deciduous, much shorter than the petals. Stamens 4-5, 

 longer than the petals and alternate with them. Pistillate 

 flowers producing imperfect stamens. Ovary compressed, 

 2-celled. Fruit a 2-celled, 2-seeded, broadly winged key.* 



1. P. trifoliata, L. Hop-tebe, Wafer Ash. A shrub 4-8 ft. 

 high. Leaves long-petioled ; leaflets oval or ovate, acute, obscurely 

 serrate, the lateral ones oblique. Cymes compound. Flowers 

 greeiiish. Stamens mostly 4, filaments bearded, key about 1 in. in 

 diameter; wing notched, strongly netted-veined. Rocky banks; often 

 cultivated.* 



52. POLYGALACE.a;. Polygala Family. 



Herbs or shrubs. Leaves alternate or nearly opposite, 

 without stipules, simple. Flowers irregular. Sepals unequal, 

 the 2 inner wing-shaped and petal-like. Petals 3-5, hyj)ogy- 

 nous, the 2 lateral ones often united with the hooded lower 

 one into a tube, split open at the base behind. Stamens 8, 

 filaments united into a split sheath, which is usually adnate 

 to the petals ; anthers usually opening by pores. Ovary 

 2-celled, 2-ovuled. [A difiicult family for the beginner.] 



POLYGALA, Toum. 



Herbs or shrubs. Flowers racemed. or spiked, some of them 

 often eleistogamous. Petals adnate below to the stamen- 

 sheath. Anthers opening by transverse pores. 



1. P. paucifolia, Willd. Fringed Polygala, Babies' Toes, 

 May Wings. A low perennial herb, with branches 3-4 in. high 

 from a slender, creeping rootstock. Lower leaves scattered, small 

 and scale-like, the upper ones with petioles, crowded near the tips of 

 the branches, ovate or nearly so. Flowers of two kinds, the eleis- 

 togamous whitish, fertile, borne underground along the rootstock, the 

 terminal flowers large and showy (nearly an inch long), rose-purple, 

 with a beautiful fringed crest. Woods, especially N. and E. 



