The Manual of the Botany of the Northern United States Part 25

Sepals 2 or 3, often p.r.i.c.kly. Petals 4--6. Style almost none; stigmas 3--6, radiate. Pod oblong, p.r.i.c.kly, opening by 3--6 valves at the top.

Seeds crested.--Annuals or biennials, with p.r.i.c.kly bristles and yellow juice. Leaves sessile, sinuate-lobed, and with p.r.i.c.kly teeth, often blotched with white. Flower-buds erect, short-peduncled. (Name from ???ea, a disease of the eye, for which the juice of a plant so called by the Greeks was a supposed remedy.)

1. A. platceras, Link & Otto. Setose-hispid all over; petals white, 1--2' long; capsule armed with stout spines.--Central Kan. and Neb., south and westward.

A. MEXICaNA, L. (MEXICAN P.) Flowers yellow, rarely white.--Waste places, southward. July--Oct. (Adv. from trop. Amer.) (Addendum)--ARGEMONE MEXICANA. Collected at Merodosia, Ill., with white flowers, by _A. B. Seymour_.

ORDER 9. FUMARIaCEae. (FUMITORY FAMILY.)

_Delicate smooth herbs, with watery juice, compound dissected leaves, irregular flowers, with 4 somewhat united petals, 6 diadelphous stamens, and 2-merous pods and seeds like those of the_ Poppy Family.--Sepals 2, small and scale-like. Corolla flattened, closed; the 4 petals in two pairs; the outer with spreading tips, and one or both of them spurred or saccate at the base; inner pair narrower, and their callous crested tips united over the stigma. Stamens in two sets of 3 each, placed opposite the larger petals, hypogynous; their filaments often united; middle anther of each set 2-celled, the lateral ones 1-celled. Pod 1-celled, either 1-seeded and indehiscent, or several-seeded with 2 parietal placentae and deciduous valves.--Leaves delicate, usually alternate, without stipules. Slightly bitter, innocent plants.

[*] Corolla bigibbous or 2-spurred, the 2 outer petals alike. Pod several-seeded.

1. Adlumia. Petals united into a spongy persistent subcordate corolla.

Seeds crestless.

2. Dicentra. Corolla cordate or 2-spurred at base, less united. Seeds crested.

[*][*] Corolla with but one petal spurred at base, deciduous.

3. Corydalis. Pod with few to many crested or arilled seeds.

4. Fumaria. Fruit a globular 1-seeded nutlet. Seed crestless.

1. ADLuMIA, Raf. CLIMBING FUMITORY.

Petals all permanently united in a cordate-ovate corolla, becoming spongy-cellular and persistent, enclosing the small, few-seeded pod.

Seeds not crested. Stigma 2-crested. Filaments monadelphous below in a tube which is adherent to the corolla, diadelphous at the summit.--A climbing biennial, with thrice-pinnate leaves, cut-lobed delicate leaflets, and ample panicles of drooping white or purplish flowers.

(Dedicated by Rafinesque to _Major Adlum_.)

1. A. cirrhsa, Raf.--Wet woods; N. Eng. to Mich., E. Kan., and southward. June--Oct.--A handsome vine, with delicate foliage, climbing by the slender young leaf-stalks over high bushes; often cultivated.

2. DICeNTRA, Borkh. DUTCHMAN'S BREECHES.

Petals slightly cohering into a heart-shaped or 2-spurred corolla, either deciduous or withering-persistent. Stigma 2-crested and sometimes 2-horned. Filaments slightly united in two sets. Pod 10--20-seeded.

Seeds crested.--Low, stemless perennials (as to our wild species) with ternately compound and dissected leaves, and racemose nodding flowers.

Pedicels 2-bracted. (Name from d??, _twice_, and ???t???, _a spur_;--accidentally printed DICLTRA in the first instance, which by an erroneous conjecture was afterwards changed into DIeLYTRA.)

[*] _Raceme simple, few-flowered._

1. D. Cucullaria, DC. (DUTCHMAN'S BREECHES.) Scape and slender-petioled leaves from a sort of _granulate bulb_; lobes of leaves linear; _corolla with 2 divergent spurs_ longer than the pedicel; _crest of the inner petals minute_.--Rich woods, especially westward.--A very delicate plant, sending up in early spring, from the cl.u.s.ter of grain-like tubers crowded together in the form of a scaly bulb, the finely cut leaves and the slender scape, bearing 4--10 pretty, but odd, white flowers tipped with cream-color.

2. D. Canadensis, DC. (SQUIRREL CORN.) Subterranean shoots bearing scattered _grain-like tubers_ (resembling peas or grains of Indian corn, yellow); leaves as in n. 1; _corolla merely heart-shaped_, the spurs very short and rounded; _crest of the inner petals conspicuous, projecting_.--Rich woods, especially northward. April, May.--Flowers greenish-white tinged with rose, with the fragrance of Hyacinths.

[*][*] _Racemes compound, cl.u.s.tered._

3. D. eximia, DC. Subterranean shoots scaly; divisions and lobes of the leaves broadly oblong; corolla oblong, 2-saccate at the base; crest of the inner petals projecting.--Rocks, western N. Y., rare, and Alleghanies of Va. May--Aug.--Coa.r.s.er-leaved than the others; scapes 6--10' high.

3. CORDALIS, Vent.

Corolla 1-spurred at the base (on the upper side), deciduous. Style persistent. Pod many-seeded. Seeds crested or arilled. Flowers in racemes. Our species are biennial, leafy-stemmed, and pale or glaucous.

(The ancient Greek name for the crested lark.)

[*] _Stem strict; flowers purplish or rose-color with yellow tips._

1. C. glauca, Pursh. (PALE CORYDALIS.) Racemes panicled; spur of the corolla very short and rounded; pods erect, slender, elongated.--Rocky places; common; 6'--2 high. May--Aug.

[*][*] _Low, ascending; flowers yellow._

[+] _Outer petals wing-crested on the back._

2. C. flavula, DC. Pedicels slender, conspicuously bracted; corolla pale yellow, 3--4" long, spur very short; tips of the outer petals pointed, longer than the inner; crest 3--4-toothed; pods torulose, pendulous or spreading; seeds acutely margined, rugose-reticulated; aril loose.--Penn. to Minn., and southward.

3. C. micrantha, Gray. Pedicels short and bracts small; corolla pale yellow, 4" long, with short spur and entire crest, or flowers often cleistogamous and much smaller, without spur or crest; pods ascending, torulose; seeds obtuse-margined, smooth and s.h.i.+ning.--N. Car., Mo., Minn., and southward.

4. C. crystallina, Engelm. Pedicels short, erect; corolla bright yellow, 8" long, the spur nearly as long as the body; crest very broad, usually toothed; pods terete, erect, densely covered with transparent vesicles, seeds acutely margined, tuberculate.--S. W. Mo. and southward.

[+][+] _Outer petals merely carinate on the back, not crested._

5. C. aurea, Willd. (GOLDEN C.) Corolla golden-yellow, ' long, the slightly decurved spur about half as long, shorter than the pedicel; pods spreading or pendulous, becoming torulose; seeds obtuse-margined.--Rocky banks, Vt. to Penn., Mo., Minn., and westward.

Var. occidentalis, Engelm. Flowers rather larger, the spur nearly as long as the body; pods less torulose, on short pedicels; seeds acutish on the margin.--Neb. and Kan. to W. Tex. and westward.

4. FUMaRIA, Tourn. FUMITORY.

Corolla 1-spurred at the base. Style deciduous. Fruit indehiscent, small, globular, 1-seeded. Seeds crestless.--Branched and leafy-stemmed annuals, with finely dissected compound leaves, and small flowers in dense racemes or spikes. (Name from _fumus_, smoke.)

F. OFFICINaLIS, L. (COMMON FUMITORY.) Sepals ovate-lanceolate, acute, sharply toothed, narrower and shorter than the corolla (which is flesh-color tipped with crimson); fruit slightly notched.--Waste places, about dwellings. (Adv. from Eu.)

ORDER 10. CRUCiFERae. (MUSTARD FAMILY.)

_Herbs, with a pungent watery juice and cruciform tetradynamous flowers; fruit a silique or silicle._--Sepals 4, deciduous. Petals 4, hypogynous, regular, placed opposite each other in pairs, their spreading limbs forming a cross. Stamens 6, two of them inserted lower down and shorter (rarely only 4 or 2). Pod usually 2-celled by a thin part.i.tion stretched between the two marginal placentae, from which when ripe the valves separate, either much longer than broad (a _silique_), or short (a _silicle_), sometimes indehiscent and nut-like (_nuc.u.mentaceous_), or separating across into 1-seeded joints (_lomentaceous_). Seeds campylotropous, without alb.u.men, filled by the large embryo, which is curved or folded in various ways: i.e. the _cotyledons acc.u.mbent_, viz., their margins on one side applied to the radicle, so that the cross-section of the seed appears thus o==; or else _inc.u.mbent_, viz., the back of one cotyledon applied to the radicle, thus o . In these cases the cotyledons are plane; but they may be folded upon themselves and round the radicle, as in Mustard, where they are _conduplicate_, thus o>>. In Leavenworthia alone the whole embryo is straight.--Leaves alternate, no stipules. Flowers in terminal racemes or corymbs; pedicels rarely bracted.--A large and very natural family, of pungent or acrid, but not poisonous plants. (The characters of the genera are taken almost wholly from the pods and seeds; the flowers being nearly alike in all.)

SERIES I. Pod 2-celled, regularly dehiscent by 2 valves.

[*] Pod compressed parallel to the broad part.i.tion. Seeds flat or flattish, orbicular or oval; cotyledons acc.u.mbent or nearly so.

[+] Pod large, oblong-elliptical, valves nerveless. Seeds in 2 rows.

Flowers yellow.

1. Selenia. Leaves pinnatisect. Raceme leafy-bracteate. Seeds winged.

[+][+] Pod linear; valves nerveless. Seeds in one row. Flowers yellow only in n. 3.