: , ,L , L ) A.SCLEPIADACEAE. 



terior. North Coast Ranges; Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers; Sierra 

 Nevada. May-July. Poisonous to cattle. 



2. CYCLADENIA Benth. 

 Stems simple, one to many from a large fleshy root, bearing 2 or 3 pairs of 

 leaves and 2 or 3 axillary peduncles with 2 or 3 rose-purple flowers on slender 

 pedicels. Calyx parted into 5 slender lobes. Corolla funnelform with 5 broadly 

 oblong or roundish lobes and 5 minute appendages alternate with the lobes, one 

 behind each stamen. Stamens borne on the tube. Style long and filiform, with 

 a conspicuous membranous ring under the stigma. Disk an entire cup surround- 

 ing the base of the ovaries. (Greek kuklos, a ring, and aden, a gland, refer- 

 ring to the disk.) 



1. C. humilis Benth. Three to 6 in. high, glabrous; leaves thickish, ovate or 

 roundish, petioled, 1 V\ to 2% in. long; corolla about % in. long; pedicels about 

 7 lines long; follicles 3 in. long. 



High montane on gravelly ridges (about 6,000 ft.) : Santa Lucia Peak; Cobb 

 Mt. ; Snow Mt., and northward; Sierra Nevada. June-July. 



ASCLEPIADACEAE. Milkweed Family. 



Herbs witli milky juice. Leaves opposite or whorled. Flowers cymose, regu- 

 lar, with the stamens and the divisions of the corolla and calyx 5. Pistils 2, 

 witli distinct superior ovaries; styles distinct below but united above into a 

 short-cylindric stylar disk, and surrounded by the stamens which are attached to 

 it. Between each anther, on the sides of the stylar organ, is a cloven gland 

 or elevated ridge slit longitudinally. Pollen-grains in each cell united into waxy 

 pear-shaped masses which are stalked and suspended in pairs from the summit 

 of cloven glands, each pair of stalks deriving its pollen-masses, not from the 

 cells of one anther, but from contiguous anther-cells of different anthers. 

 Pollination entomophilous; the foot of the insect is caught in the slit, and when 

 drawn upward, drags out and bears away the pollen-masses; in walking over 

 other flowers, the insect's foot is again drawn through a slit, and the pollen- 

 masses are left behind on the stigma, which is concealed beneath the cloven 

 structure. Fruit of 2 folllicles. Seeds with a silky tuft of hairs at the 

 micropyle. 



Stems terete, erect 1 . Asclepias. 



Stems strongly flattened, prostrate 2. SOLANOA. 



1. ASCLEPIAS L. Milkweed. 



Perennial herbs with thick deep-seated roots. Stems strictly erect. Peduncles 

 of the simple umbels generally placed between the opposite leaves, but nearer 

 one than the other. Bracts of the involucre usually subulate. Calyx and corolla 

 5-parted, the divisions reflexed, those of the former small, persistent, those of 

 the latter deciduous. Stamens 5, inserted on the base of the corolla, the fila- 

 ments united into a tube which is blended above with the stylar column and 

 bears a circle of 5 hoods, each containing an incurved horn, or hornless. Fol- 

 licles ovate or Lanceolate, one often abortive. Seeds anatropus, flat, margined, 

 imbricated on the large placenta. Embryo Large, with broad foliaceous cotyle- 

 dons in thin albumen. (Creek name of the European Swallow-wort, a plant of 

 this family.) 



lldcxis of the stamens witli an incurved horn or crest projecting from or contained 

 within the cavity. 

 Herbage glabrous; leaves mostly m whorls of .} to 6, linear or Hnear-lanceolate ; umbels 

 on peduncles longer than the pedicels 1. .1. mexicana. 





