410 W. L. Bray. 
filaments in older flowers, but remains of only three anthers. Anthobryum 
Phil. has five stamens, It appears, therefore, that here again the number 
of stamens is not to be taken for great value in constituting a genus. 
The seeds of F. triandra, of which so far as examined six or more 
are matured in each capsule, are some ten times the volume of F. pulveru- 
lenta, irregular in shape from crowding in the capsule, and furnished with 
large spherieal water — storing cells in the epidermal coat. The capsule 
before dehiscence is nearly spherical, slighthy wider than long. 
Even disregarding the stamen character, we have here a species so 
isolated from all other Frankeniaceae in its vegetative morphology, its form 
of growth and its distribution, as to merit special distinction which might 
appropriately be done by elevating it to generic rank as PuriLiPPI thought 
best in describing Anthobryum. As touching its phylogenetic relationship 
this is plain, that the Frankenia of the Puna Region has been for a very 
long time isolated from all other members of the family. This occurrence 
in such high altitudes (3500—4000 m) is a remarkable exception in the 
Frankeniaceae. 
Frankenia Vidalii F. Phil. deserves special interest for two reasons, 
(1) because of its distribution, (2) because of its relationship. This plant is 
commonly referred to Chili, but in Flora de Chili it is ascribed to the 
coasts of the Islands San Ambrosio and San Felix; that is, entirely isolated 
some 10 degrees west from the Chilan coast. In habit, in the size and 
oecurrence of leaves, in their folding, and the epidermal structure, this 
plant is more like Beatsonia portulacoides than any other species. Although 
I have not been fortunate enough to examine the flowers, their minuteness 
— calyx 5 mm long — is further warrant for placing F. Vidalii in the 
section Toichogonia isolata. It is, in fact, another one of those species which 
have evidently been separated from an ancestral form for a very long time. 
That it should show a nearer affinity to Beatsonia of St. Helena than to 
any Chilan forms seems doubtful, although the southern extratropical islands 
are not wanting in analogous cases. 
F. farinosa Remy is placed with the species of sect. Toichogonia isolata 
provisionally, for it may be only one of the prominent species of sect. 
Toichogonia cosmopolita corresponding to the tall bushy forms of F. pauci- 
[lora in Australia, but if so, the oecurrence of so distinct a species among 
the South American forms of Toichogonia cosmopolita points to a more 
complex developement of that group than we have been supposing. The 
plant is described as a woody shrub, growing in dense domelike clusters 
several feet high (one meter or more?); the branches rigid, covered with 
a mealy pulverulence; the inflorescence subcorymbose at the apex of 
branches; stamens five, instead of six as in sect. Trichogonia cosmopolita. In 
isolated lagoons at an altitude of 1000 meters in the mountains about Cobija 
and northern part of desert of Atacama. 
