The flowers of this family are much like the Mustards, but the stamens
are all of equal length and are often more than six; the leaves are
alternate and consist of three or several leaflets, with stalks, and
the plant usually tastes bitter and disagreeable instead of pungent.
There is no partition in the pods, which are on long, threadlike
stalks; the ovary is superior and the seeds are kidney-shaped. Many
flowers have only a rudimentary pistil and never produce fruit. The
Caper, of which we eat the pickled flower-buds for a relish, is a shrub
which grows in the Levant. The family is quite large and flourishes in
warm regions.
There are several kinds of Cleomella, resembling Cleome, except that
the pods are different.
[Sidenote: =Cleomella=
_Cleomélla lóngipes_
=Yellow
Spring
Nev., Cal., Oreg.=]
This is a handsome, rather odd-looking plant, with a stout, smooth,
yellowish or purplish stem, sometimes branching and over a foot tall.
The leaves are bright light-green, smooth, toothless and slightly
thickish, and the three leaflets are sometimes each tipped with a hair,
and have a tuft of small hairs at the base of the leaf-stalk, in place
of a stipule. The flowers are about half an inch across, and are a
beautiful warm shade of golden-yellow, the long stamens being of the
same color and giving a very pretty feathery appearance to the large
cluster. The pods are queer-looking little things and stick straight
out from the stem. This has a slightly unpleasant smell, but looks very
gay and pretty in the fields and along the edges of the mesas around
Reno.
[Illustration]
[Illustration: Cleomella--C. longipes.]
[Illustration]
There are many kinds of Cleome; ours are branching herbs, with
palmately-divided leaves; the flowers with four sepals, four petals,
and six stamens. The ovary has a stalk with a gland at its base and
becomes a long pod, with a long stalk and many seeds.
[Sidenote: =Bee-plant=
_Cleòme serrulàta_
=Pinkish-lilac, white
Summer
Southwest, etc.=]
In Arizona this exceedingly handsome plant often covers the dry beds
of rivers with acres of beautiful color. The smooth, branching stem
is sometimes as much as eight feet high. The upper leaves are long
and narrow and the lower are larger and usually have three leaflets,
but all are bluish-green and peculiarly soft and smooth to the
touch. The buds are purple and the delicate flowers, with threadlike
flower-stalks, grow in a handsome, feathery cluster, sometimes a foot
long, with numerous bracts. They have four, pinkish-lilac or white
petals and six exceedingly long, threadlike stamens with minute,
curling, green anthers. The lilac pistil is also very long and before
the flower drops off begins to develop into a small, flat, green pod.
These gradually lengthen, until the stem is ornamented with many
hooklike pods, with slender stalks, hanging all along it. Many of the
flowers do not produce fruit. The foliage when it is crushed gives off
a rank, unpleasant smell, which is responsible for the local name of
Skunk-weed. This is widely distributed and is found in the central and
northern part of the United States, as well as in the Southwest.
[Illustration]
[Illustration: Bee-plant--Cleome serrulata.]
[Illustration]
[Sidenote: =Yellow Cleome=
_Cleòme platycàrpa_
=Yellow
Spring
Nevada=]
An odd-looking plant, with very pretty, feathery flower-clusters.
The hairy stem is over a foot tall and the leaves are bright
yellowish-green and mostly smooth on the upper side, with hairy margins
and hairy on the under side. The flowers are a warm shade of bright
golden-yellow and form a handsome, rather flat-topped cluster, with
long stamens, and the oblong pods are an inch long or less, flat
and much broader than those of the last. The flowers are slightly
sweet-scented and the whole plant exudes a faint unpleasant odor.
This is conspicuous on the dreary mesas around Reno, often growing
with _Cleomella longipes_, which it very much resembles in general
appearance, except for the pods, which are quite different.
There is only one kind of Isomeris.
[Sidenote: =Bladderpod=
_Isómeris arbòrea_
=Yellow
Spring
California=]
This is a shrub about three feet high, which is attractive except for
its unpleasant smell. The leaves are smooth, toothless, stiffish and
thickish, and bluish-green, with a small bristle at the tip, and mostly
with three leaflets. The pretty flowers are nearly an inch across and
warm yellow in color, not very bright but pretty in tone, with six very
long, yellow stamens, and form a short, oblong cluster. The ovary has
such a long stalk, even in the flower, that it gives an odd appearance
and it develops into a very curious and conspicuous, drooping pod, an
inch and a half long, much inflated and resembling a very fat pea-pod,
on a long stalk, with two rows of seeds like little peas inside it,
which taste very bitter. This is quite common on southern mesas. The
name Bladderpod is also used for Lesquerella, which belongs to the
Mustard Family.
[Illustration]
[Illustration: Bladderpod--Isomeris arborea.]