Asa Gray

“ Sexual reproduction by antheridia and archegonia, which are immersed in the thallus, or sessile or pedicelled upon it, or borne on a peduncled receptacle. The fertilized archegonium develops into a capsule (sporogonium) closely invested by a calyptra, which ruptures above as the ripened capsule (containing numerous spores and usually elaters) pushes upward. It is also commonly surrounded by a usually double involucre, the inner (often called perianth) more or less tubular, the outer tubular or more often foliaceous, sometimes wholly wanting. ”

“ MELANOBÁLANUS. Bark dark, furrowed; leaves deciduous, their lobes and teeth acute and bristle-pointed (at least in youth) ; stamens mostly 4–6; cup-scales membranaceous; styles long and spreading; abortive ovules near the top of the perfect seed; inner surface of nut tomentose; fruit maturing the second year, sessile or on short thick peduncles; wood porous and brittle.—Black Oaks.
[*] Leaves pinnatifid or lobed, slender-petioled, not coriaceous, the lobes or teeth conspicuously bristle-pointed. ”

“ Embryo thread-shaped, spirally coiled in the rather fleshy albumen, destitute of cotyledons, sometimes with a few alternate scales (belonging to the plumule) ; germination occurring in the soil.—Leafless annual herbs, with thread-like yellowish or reddish stems, bearing a few minute scales in place of leaves; on rising from the ground becoming entirely parasitic on the bark of herbs and shrubs on which they twine, and to which they adhere by means of suckers developed on the surface in contact. Flowers small, cymose-clustered, mostly white; usually produced late in summer and in autumn. ”

“ Sporangia collected in dots, lines, or variously shaped clusters (sori or fruit-dots) on the back or margins of the frond or its divisions, cellular-reticulated, stalked, the stalk running into a vertical incomplete many-jointed ring, which by straightening at maturity ruptures the sporangium transversely on the inner side, discharging the spores. Fruit dots often covered (at least when young) by a membrane called the indusium (or less properly the involucre) , growing either from the back or the margin of the frond. ”

“ Flowers polygamous-diœcious, with a 6-parted open calyx; the sterile with 9 stamens in 3 rows, the inner filaments 1–2-lobed and gland-bearing at base; anthers 2-celled and 2-valved; fertile flowers with 15–18 rudiments of stamens in 2 forms, and a globular ovary. Drupe obovoid, red, the stalk not thickened.—Shrubs, with deciduous leaves, and honey-yellow flowers in almost sessile lateral umbel-like clusters, appearing before the leaves (in our species) ; the clusters composed of smaller clusters or umbels, each of 4–6 flowers and surrounded by an involucre of 4 deciduous scales. ”

“ Fruit-dots round, naked, arranged on the back of the frond in one or more rows each side of the midrib or central vein, or irregularly scattered, each borne in our species on the end of a free veinlet. Rootstocks creeping, branched, often covered with chaffy scales, bearing scattered roundish knobs, to which the stipes are attached by a distinct articulation. (Name from πολύς, many, and ποῦς, foot, alluding to the branching rootstock.) ”

“ Stamens with their short and broad filaments continued beyond the anther-cells, and often coherent with each other. Style usually club-shaped, with the simple stigma turned to one side. Valves of the capsule bearing the several-seeded placentæ on their middle; after opening, each valve as it dries folds together lengthwise firmly, projecting the seeds. Seeds anatropous, rather large, with a hard seed-coat, and a large and straight embryo nearly as long as the albumen; cotyledons flat.—Leaves alternate, with stipules. ”

“ Corolla trumpet-shaped or bell-funnel-shaped, longer than the deeply 5-cleft or 5-parted calyx, naked, or with 5 small glandular folds or appendages in the open throat. Anthers oblong or arrow-shaped. Style long and thread-form. Nutlets ovoid, fleshy when fresh, smooth or wrinkled, obliquely attached next the base by a prominent internal angle, the scar small.—Smooth or soft-hairy perennial herbs, with pale and entire leaves, and handsome purplish-blue (rarely white) flowers, in loose and short panicled or corymbed raceme-like clusters, only the lower one leafy-bracted; pedicels slender. ”

“ The tubular flowers compose the disk; and a head which has no ray-flowers is said to be discoid. When the head contains two sorts of flowers it is said to be heterogamous; when only one sort, homogamous. The leaves of the involucre, of whatever form or texture, are termed scales. The bracts or scales, which often grow on the receptacle among the flowers, are called the chaff; when these are wanting, the receptacle is said to be naked.—The largest order of Phænogamous plants. ”

“ Fruit small obliquely ovate pointed drupes, each raised on a slender stalk which appears after flowering; the spadix itself also then raised on an elongated thread-form peduncle. Embryo ovoid, with a short and pointed plumule from the upper end, by the side of the short cotyledon.—Marine herbs, growing under water, with long and thread-like forking stems, and slender almost capillary alternate leaves, sheathing at the base. Flowers rising to the surface at the time of expansion. ”

“ Petal-bearing flowers solitary; the small secondary flowers clustered in the axils of the leaves, nearly sessile; calyx of the large flowers hairy-pubescent, of the small ones hoary, like the stem and lower side of the lanceolate-oblong leaves.—Sandy or gravelly dry soil, Maine to Minn. and southward. June–Aug.—Stems at first simple. Corolla of the large flowers 1 ́ wide, producing pods 3 ́ ́ long; pods of the smaller flowers not larger than a pin's head. A variety is more hoary, and with a stronger tendency to multiply the minute clustered flowers. ”

“ Fertile flower a single 4-celled ovary, either sessile or pedicelled, bearing 2 distinct and filiform sessile, usually persistent stigmas. Fruit nut-like, compressed, 4-lobed, 4-celled, separating at maturity into as many closed 1-seeded portions. Seed pendulous, filling the cell; embryo slender, straight or slightly curved, nearly the length of the oily albumen.—Low, slender and usually tufted, glabrous, or beset with minute (microscopic) stellate scales, with spatulate or linear entire leaves, both forms of leaves often occurring on the same stem. ”

“ Plants (chiefly herbs) with perfect and generally symmetrical hypogynous flowers; the stamens, counting sterile filaments, as many or commonly twice as many, and the lobes or cells (1–few-ovuled) of the ovary as many, as the sepals, the axis of the dry fruit persisting.—Seeds without albumen except in Oxalis. Flowers mostly 5-merous and the sepals usually distinct. Leaves never punctate. An order not easily defined, and including several strongly marked tribes or suborders which have been regarded by many botanists as distinct. ”

“ Sepals extended into ears at the base. Petals somewhat unequal, the lower one spurred at the base. Stamens closely surrounding the ovary, often slightly cohering with each other; the two lower bearing spurs which project into the spur of the corolla. Besides these conspicuous blossoms, which appear in spring, others are produced later (especially in the stemless species) , on shorter peduncles or on runners, usually concealed under the leaves; these never open nor develop petals, but are fertilized in the bud, and are far more fruitful than the ordinary blossoms. ”

“ Herbs, with opposite entire leaves, symmetrical 4–5-merous flowers, with or without petals, the distinct stamens no more than twice the number of the sepals, either hypogynous or perigynous, styles 2–5 (or rarely united into one) ; seeds several or usually many, attached to the base or to the central column of the 1-celled (rarely 3–5-celled) pod, with a slender embryo coiled or curved around the outside of mealy albumen, in Dianthus nearly straight.—Bland herbs; the stems usually swollen at the joints; uppermost leaves rarely alternate. ”

“ Ovules very numerous, scattered over the walls, orthotropous. Fruit elongated, cylindrical, berry-like.—Stemless plants, with long linear grass-like leaves, wholly submerged. The staminate clusters being confined to the bottom by the shortness of the scape, the flower-buds themselves break from their short pedicels and float on the surface, where they shed their pollen around the fertile flowers, which are raised to the surface by sudden growth at the same time ”

“ Trees, with brown or yellow-gray bark, sweet-aromatic as well as the twigs, membranaceous and straight-veined Hornbeam-like leaves heart-shaped or rounded at base, on short petioles, and sessile very thick fruiting catkins; their scales about equally 3-cleft, rather persistent; wing of fruit not broader than the seed-bearing body. ”

“ Herbs (or in the tropics often shrubs or trees) , with mostly opposite and entire leaves, stems tumid at the joints, a delicate tubular or funnel-form calyx which is colored like a corolla, its persistent base constricted above the 1-celled 1-seeded ovary, and indurated into a sort of nut-like pericarp; the stamens few, slender, and hypogynous ”

“ Sepals oblong, spreading. Petals thread-like or linear, spreading. Lip auricled or ovate at base, not tubercled, entire or nearly so. Column very small, terete, with 2 teeth or auricles at the summit and the erect anther between them. Pollen-masses 4, in one row (2 in each cell) , cohering by pairs at the apex, waxy, without any stalks, threads, or gland.—Low herbs, from solid bulbs, producing simple stems, which bear in our species a single leaf and a raceme of minute greenish flowers. (Name composed of μικρός, small, and στυλίς, a column or style.) ”

“ Perianth 6-parted, spreading above; the 6 stamens on its base; anthers introrse. Style short; stigma 3-lobed. Berry spherical, 3-celled; the cells 2-seeded.—Perennials, with much-branched stems from thick and matted rootstocks, and small greenish-yellow axillary flowers on jointed pedicels. The narrow, commonly thread-like, so-called leaves are really branchlets, acting as leaves, clustered in the axils of little scales which are the true leaves. ”

“ Ovary 3-celled; styles 3, thick, awl-shaped, recurved, stigmatic down their whole length inside. Ovules a pair in each cell, suspended, with the rhaphe dorsal (turned away from the placenta) . Capsule deeply 3-horned, 3-celled, splitting into 3 at length 2-valved 2-seeded carpels.—Nearly glabrous, low and procumbent perennial herbs, with matted creeping rootstocks, and alternate, ovate or obovate, coarsely toothed leaves, narrowed at base into a petiole. Flowers each 1–3-bracted, the upper staminate, a few fertile ones at base, unpleasantly scented; sepals greenish or purplish ”

“ A foot high or less, erect, strongly stoloniferous, forming large patches; leaves narrow and more or less involute, dark or dull green, mostly nearly as long as the culm; staminate spike 1⁄2 ́ (rarely 3⁄4 ́) long, usually dull brown or brown-purple, sessile or very nearly so; pistillate spikes 1–3, contiguous or the two lower rarely 1⁄2 ́ apart, all sessile and usually dark-colored, the lowest bract very short or at least rarely prominent; perigynium short- or round-ovate, hairy.—Dry fields; our commonest species. ”