Order 115. DIOSCOREÀCEÆ. (Yam Family.)
Plants with twining stems from large tuberous roots or knotted rootstocks, and ribbed and netted-veined petioled leaves, small diœcious 6-androus and regular flowers, with the 6-cleft calyx-like perianth adherent in the fertile plant to the 3-celled ovary. Styles 3, distinct.—Ovules 1 or 2 in each cell, anatropous. Fruit usually a membranaceous 3-angled or winged capsule. Seeds with a minute embryo in hard albumen.
1. DIOSCORÈA, Plumier. Yam.
Flowers very small, in axillary panicles or racemes. Stamens 6, at the base of the divisions of the 6-parted perianth. Capsule 3-celled, 3-winged, loculicidally 3-valved by splitting through the winged angles. Seeds 1 or 2 in each cell, flat, with a membranaceous wing. (Dedicated to the Greek naturalist, Dioscorides.)
1. D. villòsa, L. (Wild Yam-root.) Herbaceous. Stems slender, from knotty and matted rootstocks, twining over bushes; leaves mostly alternate, sometimes nearly opposite or in fours, more or less downy beneath, heart-shaped, conspicuously pointed, 9–11-ribbed; flowers pale greenish-yellow, the sterile in drooping panicles, the fertile in drooping simple racemes; capsules 8–10´´ long.—Thickets, S. New Eng. to Fla., west to Minn., Kan., and Tex.
Order 116. LILIÀCEÆ. (Lily Family.)
Herbs, or rarely woody plants, with regular and symmetrical almost always 6-androus flowers; the perianth not glumaceous, free from the chiefly 3-celled ovary; the stamens one before each of its divisions or lobes (i.e. 6, in one instance 4), with 2-celled anthers; fruit a few–many-seeded pod or berry; the small embryo enclosed in copious albumen. Seeds anatropous or amphitropous (orthotropous in Smilax). Flowers not from a spathe, except in Allium; the outer and inner ranks of the perianth colored alike (or nearly so) and generally similar, except in Trillium.
Suborder I. Smilaceæ. Shrubby or rarely herbaceous, the petiole of the 3–9-nerved netted-veined leaves often tendril-bearing. Flowers (in ours) diœcious, in axillary umbels, small, with regular 6-parted deciduous perianth. Anthers apparently 1-celled. Stigmas 3, sessile. Fruit a 3-celled berry, with 1–2 pendulous orthotropous seeds in each cell. Embryo minute in horny albumen.
1. Smilax. Characters as above.
Suborder II. Liliaceæ proper. Never climbing by tendrils. Very rarely diœcious. Seeds anatropous or amphitropous.