A rather slender, branching herb with perennial, horizontal rootstock and stems 1 to 4 feet high, with milky juice. Leaves entire, opposite, ovate or oval, pointed at the apex, narrowed or rounded at the base, smooth above, pale and more or less hairy beneath, 11/2 to 4 inches long, threefourths to 21/2 inches wide; petioles short and usually less than one-third of an inch long. Flowers fragrant, pink or pink and white, numerous in loose, terminal clusters (cymes); each flower about one-fourth of an inch broad; calyx with five short, pointed lobes; corolla narrowly bell-shaped with five reflexed lobes; stamens five, attached to the base of the corolla within and alternate with its lobes. Fruit a slender pod (follicle) about 4 inches long and one-eighth of an inch thick.

Memoir 15 N. Y. State Museum

Plate 170

A. Spreading Dogbane - Apocynum androsaemifolium

In fields and thickets, New Brunswick to British Columbia, south to Georgia and Arizona. Flowering in June and July.

About five closely related species, all with smaller flowers, are recognized by botanists as native to this State.