ASCLEPIADA'CEE, or anatund order of dicotyledonoua.or exogenous plants, mostly shrubs, often with twiningkterns, ahnoSt always with milky juice. The leaves are entire, and have cilia between their stalks in place of stipules.. The flowers ar,,e peculiar in their structure, although symmetrical and regular. The calyx is divided into five segments, the corolla into five lobes; there are five stamens, and the stigma has five angles. The filaments are usually united so as to form a tube, which is generally furnished with a coronet of peculiar hood-shaped appendages; the anthers are two-celled, the pollen grains cohering in wax-like masses, which fall out of the anther cells, and become attached to glands at the angles of the stigma; there arc two ovaries and two styles very close together, and often very short, with one dilated stigma common to both. The fruit consists of two follicles, or, by abortion, of one only, having numerous imbricated seeds with thin albumen, the ends of the seeds terminating in long down. There are about 1000 known species, chiefly natives of warm climates. Some of them are cultivated in gardens and hot-houses, upon account of their curious or beautiful flowers, among the most familiar of which are some of the species of asclepks (q.v.) or swallow-wort; perhaps none of them is more highly or deservedly esteemed than stephanotis floribunda, the fragrance of 'which equals its beauty, and which, since its introduction into British hot-houses, has been sought for the bridal garlands of the highest aristocracy. No hot-house climber is better known than Nye car nosa, at each flower of width a drop of honey is always found to hang. A number of species are medicinal, as Indian sarsaparilla (q.v.) (hamidekmus indices); mudar (q.v.) (calotropis gigantea), so highly prized in the East Indies; earcostemma glaucum, the ipecacuanha of Venezuela; tylophora asthmatica and secamone maim, the roots of which are used as emetics, and in smaller does as cathartics, and the former of which is reckoned among the most valuable medicinal plants of India; cynanehum acuturn, which yields a purgative- called hontpelier scammony, and •Dineetoximpin offleinale, which possesses similar properties. Argel (q.v.), much used for belongs to
this order.—The down of the seeds is sometimes employed as a substitute for silk or cotton (see ASCLEPIAS); and the stems of not a few species afford useful filters, as those of the aselepius syriaca (see ASeLEMS), the mudar (q.v.) and other species of calotropis, natives of India and Persia, hap/ riridyfora, holostemmarheedianum, etc. The mudar or ycreuni fiber is very highly extolled by Dr. Hoyle (Fibrous Rants of India). The bark of marsdenia tenacissima, a small climbing-plant, yields a fiber called jetee, of which tine Rajmahal mountaineers make bowstrings, remarkable for their great elasticity, which they arc supposed in sonic measure to owe to the presence of caoutebone. The fiber of roylei is used in Nepal. Orthanthera riminea, which grows at the base of the Himalayas, and has long leafless wand-like stems of 10 ft. in height, yields a fiber of remarkable length and tenacity, and which is supposed to be peculiarly suited for rope making. The fibers of le ptadenia jacquemontiana and periploca aphyllum are used in Sin& for making the ropes and bands used in wells, as water does not rot them.—The milky juice of most species of A. is acrid, but in some it is bland, and they are used for food, as is the milk itself of the kiriaghuna or cow-plant of Ceylon (gym nema lactiferum). A few species, as marsdenia tinctoria, a native of Silhet, yield indigo of excellent quality. The flowers of the genus stapelia have a strong smell of carrion. and flies sometimes lay their eggs upon them, as it were by mistake.—No species of A. is a native of Britain.— The older is generally regarded as nearly allied to apoeynacem