Part 17 (1/2)

! A mark of affirmation or authentication.

Figures or words separated by a short dash (--) indicate the extremes of variation, as ”5--10” long, few--many-flowered,” i.e. varying from 5 to 10 lines in length, and with from few to many flowers.

BOTANY

OF THE

NORTHERN UNITED STATES.

SERIES I.

PHaeNOGAMOUS OR FLOWERING PLANTS.

Vegetables bearing proper flowers, that is, having stamens and pistils, and producing seeds, which contain an embryo.

CLa.s.s I. DICOTYLEDONOUS OR EXOGENOUS PLANTS.

Stems formed of bark, wood, and pith; the wood forming a layer between the other two, increasing, when the stem continues from year to year, by the annual addition of a new layer to the outside, next the bark. Leaves netted-veined. Embryo with a pair of opposite cotyledons, or rarely several in a whorl. Flowers having their parts usually in fives or fours.

SUBCLa.s.s I. ANGIOSPeRMae.

Pistil consisting of a closed ovary, which contains the ovules and forms the fruit. Cotyledons only two.

DIVISION I. POLYPETALOUS EXOGENOUS PLANTS.

Floral envelopes consisting of both calyx and corolla; the petals not united with each other. (Several genera or species belonging to Polypetalous Orders are dest.i.tute of petals, or have them more or less united.)

ORDER 1. RANUNCULaCEae. (CROWFOOT FAMILY.)

_Herbs or some woody plants, with a colorless and usually acrid juice, polypetalous, or apetalous with the calyx often colored like a corolla, hypogynous; the sepals, petals, numerous stamens, and many or few (rarely single) pistils all distinct and unconnected._--Flowers regular or irregular. Sepals 3--15. Petals 3--15, or wanting. Stamens indefinite, rarely few. Fruits either dry pods, or seed-like (achenes), or berries. Seeds anatropous (when solitary and suspended the rhaphe dorsal), with hard alb.u.men and a minute embryo.--Leaves often dissected, their stalks dilated at the base, sometimes with stipule-like appendages. (A large family, including some acrid-narcotic poisons.)

Synopsis of the Genera.

Tribe I. CLEMATIDEae. Sepals normally 4, petal-like, valvate in the bud, or with the edges bent inward. Petals none, or small. Achenes numerous, tailed with the feathery or hairy styles. Seed suspended.--Leaves all opposite.

1. Clematis. Climbing by the leafstalks, or erect herbs.

Tribe II. ANEMONEae. Sepals 3--20, often petal-like, imbricated in the bud. Stamens mostly numerous. Achenes numerous or several, in a head or spike.--Herbs, never climbing; leaves alternate, or radical, the upper sometimes opposite or whorled.

[*] Petals none (rarely some staminodia). Seed suspended.

[+] All but the lower leaves opposite or whorled. Peduncles 1-flowered.

2. Anemone. Involucre leaf-like, remote from the flower. Leaves compound or dissected. Pistils very many.

3. Hepatica. Involucre close to the flower, of 3 oval bracts, calyx-like. Leaves radical, simple and lobed. Pistils several.