An Illustrated Flora of the Northern United States, Canada and the British Possessions/Haemodoraceae
Family 26.
Haemodoràceae
R. Br.
Prodr. Fl. Nov. Holi. 1: 299.
1810.
Bloodwort Family.
Perennial herbs with erect stems, narrowly linear leaves, and regular or somewhat irregular small perfect flowers in terminal cymose panicles. Perianth 6-parted or 6-lobed, adnate to the ovary, persistent. Stamens 3, opposite the 3 inner perianth-segments. Ovary wholly or partly interior, 3-celled or rarely 1-celled; ovules usually few in each cavity, half-anatropous; style mostly slender; stigma small, entire or 3-grooved. Fruit a loculicidally 3-valved capsule. Seeds few or rarely numerous; embryo small in fleshy endosperm.
About 9 genera and 35 species, mostly natives of South Africa and Australia, a few in tropical America; only the following genus in the north temperate zone.
1.
Gyrothèca
Salisb.
Trans. Hort. Soc. 1: 327.
1812.
[Lachnanthes Ell. Bot. S. C. & Ga. 1: 47. 1816.]
A rather stout herb, with a short rootstock, red fibrous roots and equitant leaves, the basal ones longer than those of the stem. Flowers numerous, yellowish, small, in a dense terminal woolly cymose panicle. Perianth 6-parted to the summit of the ovary, the outer segments smaller than the inner. Filaments filiform, longer than the perianth; anthers linear-oblong, versatile. Ovary 3-celled; ovules few in each cavity, borne on fleshy placentae; style very slender, declined. Capsule enclosed by the withering-persistent perianth, nearly globular, 3-valved. Seeds about 6 in each cavity, flattened, nearly orbicular, peltate. [Greek, referring to the round fruit.]
A monotypic genus of southeastern North America and the West Indies.
| 1. Gyrotheca tinctòria (Walt.) Salisb. Red root. Paint root. Fig. 1319. |
|
|
Gyrotheca tinctoria Salisb. Trans. Hort. Soc. 1: 327. 1812. Lachnanthes tinctoria Ell. Bot. S. C. & Ga. 1: 47. 1816. Gyrotheca capitata Morong. Bull. Torr. Club 20: 472. 1893. Not Anonymo capitata Walt. | |
Stem 1½°-2½° tall, glabrous below, pubescent or woolly above. Leaves 2″-5″ wide, acuminate, the basal ones shorter than the stem, the upper reduced to bracts; panicle 2′-5′ broad when expanded, dense and almost capitate when young, white-woolly; flowers 4″-5″ broad, bracteolate, the perianth yellow and glabrous within; style about as long as the stamens; pedicels stout, about as long as the capsule, rather shorter than the bractlets; capsule about 3″ in diameter. | |
In swamps, eastern Massachusetts to New Jersey and Florida, mostly in pine barrens near the coast. Also in Cuba. Carolina or Indian redroot. |