NAT. ORDER. 
AsclepiadecB. 
ASCLEPIAS TUBEROSA. WHITE, OR PLEURISY-ROOT. 
Class XIII. Pentandria. Order II. Digynia. 
Gen. CJiar. Calyx, five-cleft. Corolla, monopetalous, five-parted. 
Stamens, five. Seeds, numerous. 
Spe. Char. Nectaries, five, contorted, ovate, concave, putting forth 
a little horn. 
The genus to which this superb plant belongs, takes its name 
from iEsculapias, the god of medicine. It contains an assemblage 
of some of the most beautiful productions of the vegetable kingdom ; 
and the Asclepias tuberosa is, perhaps, one of the most elegant plants 
of our country. 
The root is large, and somewhat irregularly tuberous, sending 
up many erect, and sometimes decumbent hairy stems, branching at 
the top ; the stems are round, very hairy, and of a reddish color ; 
the leaves are scattered, and supported on petioles, little more than 
the eighth of an inch in length, varying in being lanceolate-oval, 
long-oval, lanceolate, and, in the variety decumhens, linear-lanceo- 
late, and repand on the margin ; they are of a deep rich green above, 
much paler underneath, and very hairy ; the umbels are terminal, 
and somewhat in the form of a corymb ; in the variety they are 
lateral ; the bracteal involucre is composed of numerous narrow- 
linear, nearly subulate membranaceous leaves, of a salmon color ; 
the flowers are situated in terminal corymbose umbels, and are of a 
brilliant orange red color ; the fruit is a long, narrow, roundish pod, 
pointed at each end ; and the seeds, like the rest of the genus, are 
Vol. iii -92. 
