262 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



Beechdrops 

 Leptamnium virginianum (Linnaeus) Rafinesque 



Figure XXXII 



Stems erect, rather stiff and branching, slender, smooth, yellowish 

 brown or purplish yellow, 6 to 20 inches high from a thick, scaly base, the 

 roots fibrous and brittle; scales few and small. Flowers sessile, of two 

 kinds, distantly spicate on the branches; the lower flowers cleistogamous 

 and abundantly fertile, the upper complete but mostly sterile. Calyx 

 short, nearly equally five-toothed. Corolla of the upper flowers cylindric, 

 slightly flattened laterally, one-third to nearly one-half of an inch long and 

 about one-tenth of an inch thick, the slender tube much longer than the 

 four-lobed limb, upper lobe concave, larger than the three lower lobes. 

 Stamens about as long as the corolla. Lower flowers small, about one- 

 eighth of an inch long, not unfolding, borne at the summit of the ovoid 

 oyary and resembling the hood of a moss capsule. Fruit a small capsule 

 about one-fourth of an inch high. 



In woods, parasitic upon the roots of the beech, Nova Scotia to 

 Ontario and Michigan, south to Florida, Louisiana and Missouri. Flower- 

 ing from August to October. 



Acanthus Family 



Acanthaceae 

 Water Willow 



Dianthera americana Linnaeus 



Plate 207 



Stems erect, grooved and angled, 1 to 4 feet high, slender and usually 

 simple or slightly branched above, smooth. Leaves narrowly lanceolate, 

 3 to 8 inches long, one-fourth to 1 inch wide, entire, sessile or short petioled. 

 Flowers violet or nearly white, in dense, short spikes or heads at the ends 

 of the slender axillary peduncles which are shorter than or equal to the 

 leaves in length; bractlets under the flowers linear-subulate and shorter 

 than the flowers. Calyx deeply four to five-parted. Corolla two-lipped, 



