21. HYDRÁSTIS, Ellis. Orange-root. Yellow Puccoon.
Sepals 3, petal-like, falling away when the flower opens. Petals none. Pistils 12 or more in a head, 2-ovuled; stigma flat, 2-lipped. Ovaries becoming a head of crimson 1–2-seeded berries in fruit.—A low perennial herb, sending up in early spring, from a thick and knotted yellow rootstock, a single radical leaf and a simple hairy stem, which is 2-leaved near the summit and terminated by a single greenish-white flower. (Name unmeaning.)
1. H. Canadénsis, L. (Golden Seal, etc.) Leaves rounded, heart-shaped at the base, 5–7-lobed, doubly serrate, veiny, when full grown in summer 4–9´ wide.—Rich woods, N. Y. to Minn., and southward.
22. XANTHORRHÌZA, Marshall. Shrub Yellow-root.
Sepals 5, regular, spreading, deciduous. Petals 5, much smaller than the sepals, concave and obscurely 2-lobed, raised on a claw. Stamens 5 to 10. Pistils 5–15, with 2 pendulous ovules. Pods 1-seeded, oblong, the short style becoming dorsal.—A low shrubby plant; the bark and long roots deep yellow and bitter. Flowers polygamous, brown purple, in compound drooping racemes, appearing along with the 1–2-pinnate leaves from large terminal buds in early spring. (Name compounded of ξανθός, yellow, and ῥίζα, root.)
1. X. apiifòlia, L'Her. Stems clustered, 1–2° high; leaflets cleft and toothed.—Shady banks of streams, Penn. to S. W. New York and Ky., and south in the mountains. The rootstocks of this, and also of the last plant, were used as a yellow dye by the aborigines.
Nigélla Damascèna, L., the Fennel-flower, which offers a remarkable exception in having the pistils partly united into a compound ovary, so as to form a several-celled capsule, grows nearly spontaneously around gardens.
Order 2. MAGNOLIÀCEÆ. (Magnolia Family.)
Trees or shrubs, with the leaf-buds covered by membranous stipules, polypetalous, hypogynous, polyandrous, polygynous; the calyx and corolla colored alike, in three or more rows of three, and imbricated (rarely convolute) in the bud.—Sepals and petals deciduous. Anthers adnate. Pistils many, mostly packed together and covering the prolonged receptacle, cohering with each other, and in fruit forming a sort of fleshy or dry cone. Seeds 1 or 2 in each carpel, anatropous; albumen fleshy; embryo minute.—Leaves alternate, not toothed, marked with minute transparent dots, feather-veined. Flowers single, large. Bark aromatic and bitter.