310 PLANTAGINAGE^. (PLANTAIN FAMILY.) 



2. HALESIA, Ellis. Sxowdrop or Silver-bell-Tree. 



Calyx inversely conical, 4-toothed; the tube 4-ribbed, coherent with the 2-4- 

 celled ovary. Petals 4, united at the base, or oftener to the middle, into an open 

 bell-shaped corolla, convolute or imbricated in the bud. Stamens 8-16: fila- 

 ments united into a ring at the base, and usually a little coherent with the base 

 of the corolla : anthers linear-oblong. Ovules 4 in each cell. Fruit large and 

 dry, 2-4-winged, within bony and 1-4-celled. Seeds single, cylindrical. — 

 Shrubs or small trees, Avith large and veiny pointed deciduous leaves, and showy 

 white flowers, drooping on slender pedicels, in clusters or short racemes, from 

 axillary buds of the preceding year. Pubescence partly stellate. (Named for 

 Stephen Hales, author of Vegetable Statics, &c.) 



1 . H. tetraptera, L. Leaves oblong-ovate ; fruit 4-winged. — Banks of 

 streams, upper part of Virginia, also on the Ohio Eiver at Evansville (Short), 

 and southward. Fruit 1^' long. 



3. SYMPLOCOS, Jacq. (HOPE A, L. ) Sweet-Leap. 



Calyx 5-cleft, the tube coherent with the lower part of the 3-celled ovary. 

 Petals 5, imbricated in the bud, lightly unked at the base. Stamens very nu- 

 merous, in 5 clusters, one cohering with the base of each petal : filaments slen- 

 der: anthers veiy short. Fruit drupe-like or dry, mostly 1-celled and 1-seeded. 



— Shrubs or small trees , the leaves commonly turning yellowish in drying, 

 and furnishing a yellow dye. Flowers in axillary clusters or racemes, yellow. 

 (Name <tv[X7t\okos, connecttd, from the union of the stamens.) 



1. S. tinctbria, L'Her. (Horse-Sugar, &c.) Leaves elongated-oblong, 

 acute, obscurely toothed, thickish, almost persistent, minutely pubescent and 

 pale beneath (3' -5' long) ; flowers 6 - 14, in close and bracted clusters, odorous. 



— Rich ground, Virginia and southward. April. — Leaves sweet, greedily 

 eaten by cattle. 



Order 62. PI^ArVTAGITCACE^. (Plantain Family.) 



Chiefly stemless herbs, with regular A-merous spiked flowers, the stamens 

 inserted on the tube of the dry and membranaceous veinless monopetalous 

 corolla, alternate with, its lobes; — chiefly represented by the genus 



1. PLANTAGO, L. Plantain. Ribgrass. 



Calyx of 4 imbricated persistent sepals, mostly with dry membranaceous mar- 

 gins. Corolla salver-form, withering on the pod, the border 4-parted. Stamens 

 4, or rarely 2, in all or some flowers with long and weak exserted filaments, and 

 fugacious 2-celled anthers. Ovary 2- (or in No. 5 falsely 3-4-) celled, with 1 - 

 several ovules in each cell. Style and long hairy stigma single, filiform. Pod 

 2-celled, 2 - several-seeded, opening all round by a transverse line, so that the 

 top falls off like a lid, and the loose partition (which bears the peltate seeds) falls 

 away. Embryo straight, in flesbv albumen. — Leaves ribbed. Flowers whitish, 

 small, in a bracted spike or head, raised on a naked scape. (The Latin name.) 



