1. A. Serpentària, L. (Virginia Snakeroot.) Stems (8–15´ high) branched at base, pubescent; leaves ovate or oblong (or narrower) from a heart-shaped base or halberd-form, mostly acute or pointed; flowers all next the root, short-peduncled.—Rich woods, Conn. to Fla., west to Mich., Mo., and La. July.—The fibrous, aromatic-stimulant root is well known in medicine.
§ 2. Calyx-tube strongly curved like a Dutch pipe, contracted at the mouth, the short limb obscurely 3-lobed; anthers contiguous in pairs under each of the 3 short and thick lobes of the stigma; very tall twining shrubs; flowers from one or two of the superposed accessory axillary buds.
2. A. Sìpho, L'Her. (Pipe-Vine. Dutchman's Pipe.) Nearly glabrous; leaves round-kidney-shaped (sometimes 8–12´ broad); peduncles with a clasping bract; calyx (1½´ long) with a brown-purple abrupt flat border.—Rich woods, Penn. to Ga., west to Minn. and Kan. May.
3. A. tomentòsa, Sims. Downy or soft-hairy; leaves round-heart-shaped, very veiny (3–5´ long); calyx yellowish, with an oblique dark purple closed orifice and a rugose reflexed limb.—Rich woods, mountains of N. C. to Fla., west to S. Ill. and Mo. June.
§ 3. Calyx-tube straight, open, with ample 6-lobed limb, the lobes appendaged; anthers equidistant; erect herbs; flowers in axillary cymose fascicles.
A. clemátitis, L., with long-petioled cordate leaves, from Europe, is said to have permanently escaped near Ithaca, N. Y. (Dudley).
Order 92. PIPERÀCEÆ. (Pepper Family.)
Herbs, with jointed stems, alternate entire leaves, and perfect flowers in spikes, entirely destitute of floral envelopes, and with 3–5 more or less separate or united ovaries.—Ovules few, orthotropous. Embryo heart-shaped, minute, contained in a little sac at the apex of the albumen.—The characters are those of the Tribe Saurureæ, the Piperaceæ proper (wholly tropical) differing in having a 1-celled and 1-ovuled ovary.
1. SAURÙRUS, L. Lizard's-tail.
Stamens mostly 6 or 7, hypogynous, with distinct filaments. Fruit somewhat fleshy, wrinkled, of 3–4 indehiscent carpels united at base. Stigmas recurved. Seeds usually solitary, ascending.—Perennial marsh herbs, with heart-shaped converging-ribbed petioled leaves, without distinct stipules; flowers (each with a small bract adnate to or borne on the pedicel) crowded in a slender wand-like and naked peduncled terminal spike or raceme (its appearance giving rise to the name, from σαῦρος, a lizard, and οὐρά, tail).