1. L. Virginiànum, L. Stem erect from the base and with the corymbose spreading or recurving _branches terete and even_; no stipular glands; leaves oblong or lanceolate, or the lower spatulate and often opposite; flowers scattered, small (barely 3´´ long); sepals ovate, pointed, smooth-edged or nearly so, equalling the depressed 10-celled pod; styles distinct.--Dry woods; common.--Root apparently annual; but the plant propagates by suckers from the base of the stem. L. FLORIDÀNUM, Trelease, of rather stricter habit and the pods broadly ovate and obtuse, appears to have been found in S. Ill. 2. L. striàtum, Walt. Stems gregarious, erect or ascending from a creeping or decumbent base, slightly viscid, and with the mostly racemose short _branches striate with about 4 sharp wing-like angles_ decurrent from the leaves; these broader than in the last, and mostly oblong, usually with all the lower ones opposite; flowers more crowded; sepals scarcely equalling the very small subglobose brownish pod; otherwise nearly as n. 1.--Wet or boggy grounds, E. Mass. to Lakes Ontario and Huron, Ill., and southward. 3. L. sulcàtum, Riddell. Stem strictly erect from an annual root, and with the upright or ascending branches wing-angled or grooved; leaves alternate, linear, acute, the upper subulate and glandular-serrulate; a pair of _dark glands in place of stipules_; sepals ovate-lanceolate and sharp-pointed, strongly 3-nerved and with rough-bristly-glandular margins, scarcely longer than the ovoid-globose incompletely 10-celled pod; _styles united_ almost to the middle.--Dry soils, E. Mass. to Minn., and southwestward.--Flowers and pods twice as large as in the preceding. 4. L. rígidum, Pursh. Glaucous, sometimes slightly puberulent, often low and cespitose, the rigid branches angled; leaves narrow, erect, usually with stipular glands; flowers large; sepals lanceolate, glandular-serrulate; styles united; capsule ovoid, 5-valved.--Minn. to Kan., and southward. [*][*] _Flowers large, blue._ 5. L. perénne, L., var. Lewísii, Eat. & Wright. Perennial, glabrous and glaucous, 1--3° high; leaves linear, acute; flowers rather few on long peduncles; sepals obtuse or acutish, not glandular-serrulate; styles distinct; pod ovate.--Minn. to Neb., and westward. (Eu., Asia.) L. USITATÍSSIMUM, L. (COMMON FLAX.) Annual; stem corymbosely branched at top; sepals acute, ciliate.--Occasionally spontaneous in fields. (Adv. from Eu.) ORDER 23. GERANIÀCEÆ. (GERANIUM FAMILY.)