3. SPIGÈLIA, L. Pink-root. Worm-grass.
Calyx 5-parted; the lobes slender. Corolla tubular-funnel-form, 5-lobed at the summit, valvate in bud. Stamens 5; anthers linear. Style 1, slender, hairy above, jointed near the middle. Capsule short, 2-celled, twin, laterally flattened, separating at maturity from a persistent base into 2 carpels, which open loculicidally, few-seeded.—Chiefly herbs, with opposite leaves united by stipules, and the flowers spiked in one-sided cymes. (Named for Adrian Spiegel, latinized Spigelius, who wrote on botany early in the 17th century, and was perhaps the first to give directions for preparing an herbarium.)
1. S. Marilándica, L. (Maryland Pink-root.) Stems simple and erect from a perennial root (6–18´ high); leaves sessile, ovate-lanceolate, acute; spike simple or forked, short; corolla 1½´ long, red outside, yellow within; tube 4 times the length of the calyx, the lobes lanceolate; anthers and style exserted.—Rich woods, N. J. to Wisc. and Tex. June, July.—A well-known officinal anthelmintic, and a showy plant.
4. MITRÈOLA, L. Mitrewort.
Calyx 5-parted. Corolla little longer than the calyx, somewhat funnel-form, 5-lobed, valvate in the bud. Stamens 5, included. Ovary at the base slightly adnate to the bottom of the calyx, 2-celled; styles 2, short, converging and united above by a common stigma. Capsule exserted, strongly 2-horned or mitre-shaped, opening down the inner side of each horn, many-seeded.—Annual smooth herbs, 6´–2° high, with small stipules between the leaves, and small white flowers spiked along one side of the branches of a terminal petioled cyme. (Diminutive of mitra, a mitre, from the shape of the pod.)
1. M. petiolàta, Torr. & Gray. Leaves thin, oblong-lanceolate, petioled.—Damp soil, from E. Va. to Tex.
Order 69. GENTIANÀCEÆ. (Gentian Family.)
Smooth herbs, with a colorless bitter juice, opposite and sessile entire and simple leaves (except in Tribe II.) without stipules, regular flowers with the stamens as many as the lobes of the corolla, which are convolute (rarely imbricated and sometimes valvate) in the bud, a 1-celled ovary with 2 parietal placentæ, or nearly the whole inner face of the ovary ovuliferous; the fruit usually a 2-valved and septicidal many-seeded capsule.—Flowers solitary or cymose (racemose in n. 8). Calyx persistent. Corolla mostly withering-persistent; the stamens inserted on its tube. Seeds anatropous, with a minute embryo in fleshy albumen. (Bitter-tonic plants.)
Suborder I. Gentianeæ. Leaves always simple and entire, sessile, never alternate. Æstivation of corolla never valvate.
[*] Lobes of corolla convolute in the bud.