224 PLANTS GROWING IN LIGHT SOIL. 
NEW JERSEY TEA. RED-ROOT. 
Ceanothus Americanus. 
FAMILY COLOUR ODOUR RANGE TIME OF BLOOM 
Buckthorn. White. Scentless. General. July. 
flowers : crowded ina dense umbel-like cluster. Calyx: of five rounded 
lobes coloured like petals. Corolla: of five hood-shaped petals. Stamens: 
five. Pistil : one; stigma, three-lobed. Leaves : alternate on short petioles ; 
oblong ; triple-ribbed ; serrated; downy underneath. A low shrub; one to three 
feet high. oot: bright red. 
New Jersey tea is not so named because that much-abused 
State knows no other, or is especially partial to the use of 
red-root as a beverage ; but because in Revolutionary times the 
little political difficulty that made tea rather scarce was felt less 
poignantly by thrifty housewives who had bags of its dried 
leaves hung in the garret. The root-bark is also known in 
medicine, and it yields a brown dye. 
PROSTRATE TICK=-TREFOIL, (Plate CX V. T.) 
Metbomia Michduxiz. 
FAMILY COLOUR ODOUR RANGE TIME OF BLOOM 
Pulse. Purple. Sceutless. Florida to Miss. and northward. August, 
Flowers: growing in terminal racemes on axillary branches. Calyx : five- 
cleft. Corolla: papilionaceous. Pods: with scalloped margins. Leaves: of 
three rounded, ovate leaflets. Stem: prostrate ; pubescent. 
When the Meibomias or Desmodiums, as they were formerly 
called, held their family council as to the best way for them to 
disperse their seeds, they decided upona plan no doubt grat- 
ifying to themselves but just a little trying to humanity at 
large. It seems as though they had considered the question 
from their point of view alone. They then provided them- 
selves with jointed pods that are covered with bristly hooks, 
and cleverly designed to fasten in the fleece of sheep, or hair of 
animals. In fact, they do not despise clothing of any de- 
scription. In this way they secure a very wide distribution, 
and often fall upon ground at a great distance from the original 
plants. They are not well-bred like the rattlesnake, who al- 
ways gives a friendly warning of his intentions ; and the first 

