[*][*][*][*] Biennials or annuals, with alternate leaves, and yellow flowers, which are disposed to turn greenish in drying; crest small; flowering all summer.
13. P. lùtea, L. Low; flowers (bright orange-yellow) in solitary ovate or oblong heads (¾´ thick) terminating the stem or simple branches; leaves (1–2´ long) obovate or spatulate; lobes of the caruncle nearly as long as the seed.—Sandy swamps, N. J. and southward, near the coast.
14. P. ramòsa, Ell. Flowers (citron-yellow) in numerous short and dense spike-like racemes collected in a flat-topped compound cyme; leaves oblong-linear, the lowest spatulate or obovate; seeds ovoid, minutely hairy, twice the length of the caruncle.—Damp pine-barrens, Del. and southward.
15. P. cymòsa, Walt. Stem short, naked above, the numerous racemes in a usually nearly simple cyme, leaves narrow, acuminate; seeds globose, without caruncle.—Del. and southward.
Order 32. LEGUMINÒSÆ. (Pulse Family.)
Plants with papilionaceous or sometimes regular flowers, 10 (rarely 5 and sometimes many) monadelphous, diadelphous, or rarely distinct stamens, and a single simple free pistil, becoming a legume in fruit. Seeds mostly without albumen. Leaves alternate, with stipules, usually compound. One of the sepals inferior (i.e. next the bract); one of the petals superior (i.e. next the axis of the inflorescence).—A very large order (nearly free from noxious qualities), of which the principal representatives in northern temperate regions belong to the first of the three suborders it comprises.
Suborder I. Papilionaceæ. Calyx of 5 sepals, more or less united, often unequally so. Corolla inserted into the base of the calyx, of 5 irregular petals (or very rarely fewer), more or less distinctly papilionaceous, i.e. with the upper or odd petal (vexillum or standard) larger than the others and enclosing them in the bud, usually turned backward or spreading; the two lateral ones (wings) oblique and exterior to the two lower, which last are connivent and commonly more or less coherent by their anterior edges, forming the carina or keel, which usually encloses the stamens and pistil. Stamens 10, very rarely 5, inserted with the corolla, monadelphous, diadelphous (mostly with 9 united into a tube which is cleft on the upper side, and the tenth or upper one separate), or occasionally distinct. Ovary 1-celled, sometimes 2-celled by an intrusion of one of the sutures, or transversely 2–many-celled by cross-division into joints; style simple; ovules amphitropous, rarely anatropous. Cotyledons large, thick or thickish; radicle incurved.—Leaves simple or simply compound, the earliest ones in germination usually opposite, the rest alternate; leaflets almost always quite entire. Flowers perfect, solitary and axillary, or in spikes, racemes, or panicles.
I. Stamens (10) distinct.
[*] Leaves palmately 3-foliolate or simple; calyx 4–5-lobed; herbs. (Podalyrieæ.)
1. Baptisia. Pod inflated.