104 



THE INDIANA WI'ED BOOIv. 



the fruit having no oil tuhes. The juices from it furnished the 

 poison of which Socrates was compelled to drink at Athens. In 

 Indiana it has been recorded only from the southern counties. 



Drugs made from the leaves and fruit of the poison hemlock 

 are used in neuralgia, asthma and rheumatism. If collected for 

 sale the leaves should be gathered when the plant is in flower, and 

 the fruit just before ripening. The former should be dried quickly 

 in the sun, the fruit more slowly in the shade. After drying both 

 should be kept in tightly closed vessels. About 20,000 pounds of 

 the seeds and 15,000 of the leaves are imported annually, the price 

 ranging from 3 to 4 cents per pound for each. 



The Dogbane Famtey— APOCYNACE^l 



Perennial herbs, shrubs or vines with entire, mostly opposite, 

 leaves and a milky, acrid juice. Flowers solitary or borne in cymes 

 or panicles; petals 5, united at base, twisted in the bud; stamens 

 5, alternate with the petals, inserted on the tube of the corolla ; 

 ovaries 2, distinct. Fruit usually a follicle opening at the side. 



A large family but mostly represented in the tropics, the 

 oleander and periwinkle being familiar cultivated forms. Only 5 

 species grow wild in Indiana. One of these is the periwinkle or 

 blue myrtle, Vinci minor L., which has escaped from cultivation, 



and two others are weeds. 



< 7. Apocynum cannabinum L. In- 

 dian Hemp. Amy-root. (P. 

 N. 3.) 

 Stem erect or ascending, glabrous, 

 much branched, 2-3 feet high ; bark 

 tough, fibrous ; leaves opposite, oblong 

 or oval, short-stalked or sessile, 2-6 

 inches long. Flowers greenish-whit* 1 

 in erect terminal many-flowered clus- 

 ters; corolla bell-shaped, the tube not 

 longer than the sepals, Pods (fol- 

 licles) very slender, cylindrical, 4-(5 

 inches long. Seeds brown, slender. 

 tipped with a long tuft of silky white 

 hairs. (Fig. 70.) 



Frequent on slopes of old fields 

 and along railways, roadsides and 

 borders oP thickets, especially in 

 moist soil. July-Sept. It is often 

 called the "small-leaved milk- 



Fig. 70. (i, flower; It, corolla split and spread 

 to show base of stamens; c, etamens; d, tuft of 

 hairs attached to seed. (After Dodge.) 



