A large family, widely distributed, chiefly tropical; ours are perennial herbs, with milky, bitter juice; leaves toothless, usually opposite, without stipules; flowers perfect, parts in fives; corolla united; stamens on the corolla, as many as its lobes, alternate with them, ovary superior, in two parts, united by a single or two-parted style, developing into two pods; seeds often tufted with hairs. The Greek name alludes to the superstition that these plants are poisonous to dogs.
There are many kinds of Apocynum, with branching stems, tough fibrous bark, and small, white or pink flowers, in clusters; calyx with pointed teeth, its tube adhering to the ovaries by means of a thickish, five-lobed disk; corolla bell-shaped, five-lobed, with five, small, triangular appendages, inside the tube, opposite the lobes; stamens with short, broad filaments and arrow-shaped anthers, slightly adhering to the blunt, obscurely two-lobed stigma; pod slender, cylindrical; seeds numerous, small, feathery.
Spreading Dogbane, Honey-bloom
Apócynum androsaemifòlium
White, pink
Summer
West, etc.
An attractive plant, from one to four feet high, with many, smooth, widely spreading branches, purplish on one side, and smooth leaves, rather dark green above, pale underneath, with yellowish veins. The little flowers are white, tinged with pink, often striped with pink inside, mainly in loose clusters at the ends of the branches, and though not conspicuous are delicate and pretty. The pods are from two to seven inches long. This is widely scattered in fields and open woods, occurring in a variety of forms, and common in the East.
Dog-bane—Apocynum androsaemifolium.
Spider Milkweed—Asclepiodora decumbens.
BUCK-BEAN FAMILY. Menyanthaceae.
A small family, widely distributed; perennial herbs, with creeping rootstocks, growing in water or marshes; the leaves smooth, alternate, or from the root; the flowers perfect, regular, in clusters; the calyx five-lobed; the corolla more or less funnel-form with five lobes or teeth; the stamens five, on the corolla and alternate with its lobes; the ovary superior, or partly so, with one cell; the fruit usually an oval capsule, with a few flattish, smooth seeds.
Buck-bean
Menyánthes trifoliàta
White
Spring, summer
Northwest
This is the only kind, a handsome plant, eight or ten inches tall, with a stout, yellowish-green stem and rich green leaves, with long, sheathing leaf-stalks and three leaflets, with toothless or somewhat scalloped edges. The flowers are about half an inch long, with a white corolla, tinged with pink or lilac, the spreading lobes covered with white hairs, with black and yellow, swinging anthers and a green pistil, with a two-lipped stigma. There are from ten to twenty flowers in each cluster and the effect is charming, suggesting a bunch of little fringed lilies. This grows in northern bogs across the continent and also in Europe and Asia. It used to be found around San Francisco, but is now extinct.