84 Cleome dodecandra. 



they approach the top of the plant. Flowers axillary, solitary, situated 

 on long, filiform, red peduncles. Petals often only three, heart-shaped, 

 white, supported by a filiform claw an eighth of an inch long; talix 

 leaves four ; two of them lanceolate-linear, acute, lake-red ; a third 

 ovate and lake-red ; and the fourth larger, oblique, petaloid, three- 

 toothed, channelled, one-half white, the other rose-coloured. Sta- 

 mens lake-red, generally twelve in number. Germ large, yellow ; 

 pistil filiforn, rose-coloured. Silique sessile on the peduncle, yellow- 

 ish, green, membranaceous and reticulated, obtuse, clammy, pubes- 

 cent, slightly corrugated towards apex and base. Seeds numerous, 

 small, round, flattened, brownish. Delights in sandy soil on the mar- 

 gins of rivers. Grows from the northern to the southern section of 

 the Union. " Common on the sandy shores of Lake Erie, near Buf- 

 falo creek, also along the margins of the Mississippi and the Mis- 

 souri." Nuttall. Ihavefounditatthe base of the Chickisalunga rocks 

 on the Susquehanna river, two miles above the town of Columbia 

 growing on the sandy beach. Flowers in July. In its natural situations 

 it is quite pubescent, but becomes larger and nearly glabrous bycul- 

 tivation. It is possessed of medicinal properties, being like most of 

 the species of the genus, actively deleterious. 



The generic term Cleome is derived from the Greek word Kai/„, 

 claudo, and was adopted by Linnaeus from Theod. Priscianos, or 

 Octavianus Prisianus, amedical writer of the fourth century. It con- 

 tains three North American and twenty-one foreign species. They 



