3. S. áspera, Michx. Taller; stem more commonly smooth on the sides, the angles beset with stiff reflexed bristles; leaves hairy or smoothish, as in the last, but nearly all distinctly petioled, the lower floral as long as the flowers; spike often slender and more interrupted; calyx mostly glabrous, the tube rather narrower and the teeth more awl-shaped and spiny; corolla glabrous throughout. (S. palustris, var. aspera, Gray.)—Wet ground, common.
Var. glàbra, Gray. More slender, smooth and glabrous throughout, or with few bristly hairs; leaves taper-pointed, more sharply toothed, mostly rounded or truncate at the base, all more conspicuously petioled. (S. palustris, var. glabra, Gray.)—Western N. Y. to Ill., and southward.
[+][+] Nearly all the leaves long-petioled and cordate.
4. S. cordàta, Riddell. Rather weak, hirsute, 2–3° high; leaves all ovate- or oblong-cordate, acuminate, crenate (2–5´ long), the floral mostly minute; spikes slender, of numerous few-flowered clusters; calyx only 2´´ long; corolla glabrous throughout (or nearly so), barely 5´´ long. (S. palustris, var. cordata, Gray.)—Thickets, S. Ohio to Iowa, south to Va., Tenn., and Mo.
Order 83. PLANTAGINÀCEÆ. (Plantain Family.)
Chiefly stemless herbs, with regular 4-merous spiked flowers, the stamens inserted on the tube of the dry and membranaceous veinless monopetalous corolla, alternate with its lobes;—chiefly represented by the two following genera.
1. PLANTÀGO, Tourn. Plantain. Ribwort.
Calyx of 4 imbricated persistent sepals, mostly with dry membranaceous margins. Corolla salver-form or rotate, withering on the pod, the border 4-parted. Stamens 4, or rarely 2, in all or some flowers with long and weak exserted filaments, and fugacious 2-celled anthers. Ovary 2- (or in n. 5 falsely 3–4-) celled, with 1–several ovules in each cell. Style and long hairy stigma single, filiform. Capsule 2-celled, 2–several-seeded, opening transversely, so that the top falls off like a lid and the loose partition (which bears the peltate seeds) falls away. Embryo straight, in fleshy albumen.—Leaves ribbed. Flowers whitish, small, in a bracted spike or head, raised on a naked scape. (The Latin name.)
§ 1. Stamens 4; flowers all perfect; corolla not closed over the fruit.
[*] Flowers proterogynous, the style first projecting from the unopened corolla, the anthers long-exserted after the corolla has opened; seeds not hollowed on the face (except in P. lanceolata).