220 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



leaves. These, together with the rare Gray's Gentian (Dasystephana 

 grayi (Kusnezow) Britton), are all natives of New York, but not so 

 common as the Closed Gentian, although the Narrow-leaved or Bog Gentian 

 is frequent in the Adirondacks. 



Buckbean Family 



Menyanthaceae 



Buckbean; Marsh Trefoil 



Menyanthes trifoliata Linnaeus 



Plate 169 



Rootstock creeping, scaly, thick, often a foot or more long. Leaves 

 erect or ascending from the growing end of the rootstock, 2 to 10 inches 

 long, divided into three leaflets, the petioles sheathing the stem at their 

 bases. Leaflets usually obovate, blunt at the apex, narrowed at the base, 

 1 to 3 inches long. Flowers white, few or several, forming a cluster or 

 raceme on a long, leafless stalk which rises from the rootstock. Each 

 flower about one-half of an inch long ; calyx five-lobed ; corolla short funnel- 

 form, five-lobed, densely bearded with white hairs within, the lobes 

 spreading; stamens five, fastened to the inside of the corolla tube and 

 shorter than the tube. Fruit an ovoid, blunt capsule about one-third 

 of an inch long. 



In bogs, marshes and wet places, Greenland to Alaska, south to Long 



Island, Pennsylvania, Nebraska and California. Flowering from May 



to July. 



Dogbane Family 



Apocynaceae 



Spreading Dogbane 



Apocynum androsaemifolium Linnaeus 



Plate 170a 



A rather slender, branching herb with perennial, horizontal rootstock 

 and stems 1 to 4 feet high, with milky juice. Leaves entire, opposite, ovate 

 or oval, pointed at the apex, narrowed or rounded at the base, smooth 

 above, pale and more or less hairy beneath, i| to 4 inches long, three- 



