Styles 2, or rarely 3, simple and distinct, or else united into one below; stigmas depressed-capitate. Otherwise as Convolvulus and Evolvulus.—Perennial prostrate or diffusely spreading herbs; flowers small; in summer; corolla more or less hairy or silky outside. (Named for Samuel Brewer, an English botanist or amateur of the 18th century.)
1. B. humistràta, Gray. Sparsely hairy or nearly smooth; leaves varying from oblong with a somewhat heart-shaped base to linear, mucronate or emarginate; peduncles 1–7-flowered; bracts shorter than the pedicels; sepals pointed, glabrous or nearly so; corolla white; filaments hairy; styles united at base. (Bonamia humistrata, Gray.)—Dry pine barrens, Va. to La.
2. B. aquática, Gray. Minutely soft downy and somewhat hoary; peduncles 1–3-flowered; sepals silky; corolla pink or purple; filaments smooth; styles almost distinct; otherwise nearly as n. 1. (Bonamia aquatica, Gray.)—Wet pine barrens and margins of ponds, N. C. to Tex., extending into Mo.
3. B. Pickeríngii, Gray. Soft-pubescent or smoothish; leaves very narrowly linear or the lowest linear-spatulate, tapering to the base, nearly sessile; peduncles 1–3-flowered; bracts resembling the leaves, mostly exceeding the flowers; sepals hairy; filaments (scarcely hairy) and styles (united far above the middle) exserted from the open white corolla. (Bonamia Pickeringii, Gray.)—Dry pine barrens and prairies, N. J. and southward; also W. Ill.
5. EVÓLVULUS, L.
Calyx of 5 sepals, naked at base. Corolla open funnel-form or almost rotate. Styles 2, each 2-cleft; stigmas obtuse. Capsule 2-celled; the cells 2-seeded.—Low and small herbs or suffrutescent plants, mostly diffuse, never twining (hence the name, from evolvo, to unroll, in contrast with Convolvulus).
1. E. argénteus, Pursh. Many-stemmed from a somewhat woody base, dwarf, silky-villous all over; leaves crowded, broadly lanceolate, sessile, or the lower oblong spatulate and short-petioled, about ½´ long; flowers almost sessile in the axils; corolla purple, 3´´ broad.—Sterile plains and prairies, Dak. and Neb. to Mo. and Tex.
6. CÚSCUTA, Tourn. Dodder.
Calyx 5- (rarely 4-) cleft, or of 5 sepals. Corolla globular-urn-shaped, bell-shaped, or short-tubular, the spreading border 5- (rarely 4-) cleft, imbricate. Stamens with a scale-like often fringed appendage at base. Ovary 2-celled, 4-ovuled; styles distinct, or rarely united. Capsule mostly 4-seeded. Embryo thread-shaped, spirally coiled in the rather fleshy albumen, destitute of cotyledons, sometimes with a few alternate scales (belonging to the plumule); germination occurring in the soil.—Leafless annual herbs, with thread-like yellowish or reddish stems, bearing a few minute scales in place of leaves; on rising from the ground becoming entirely parasitic on the bark of herbs and shrubs on which they twine, and to which they adhere by means of suckers developed on the surface in contact. Flowers small, cymose-clustered, mostly white; usually produced late in summer and in autumn. (Name supposed to be of Arabic derivation.)
§ 1. Stigmas elongated; capsule circumscissile.