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4. H.tenellum Torr. Erect from an annual root, strigose-canessent: leaves nar- 
rowly linear, with more or less revolute margins, about 2.5 cm. long: flowers scat- 
tered, terminal, becoming lateral and axillary, on rather slender peduncles, many of 
them bractless: calyx-lobes very unequal: corolla white, with canescent tube, small 
limb and open throat: anther-tips nearly naked, blunt.—Open dry ground, through- 
out Texas. 
5. H confertifolium Torr. Sutiruticulose, very much branched and tufted, sil- 
very-white with a dense silky-hirsute pubescence: leaves crowded throughout and 
imbrieated along the upper part of the branches, from narrowly oblong to linear, 4 
to 6 mm. long. equally white both sides: flowers sessile among the leaves, mainly 
glomerate with them at the ends of branches: calyx-lobes mos!ly unequal: corolla 
pale-purple, with silky hairy tube, and internal pnberulent appendages: anthers 
cohering by minutely bearded tips. (H. limbatum, ete. Torr. Mex, Bound.)—South- 
ern and western Texas. 
+ + Flowers in bractless one-sided scorpioid spikes, which are commonly in pairs or forked. 
6. H. inundatum Swartz. Strigose-cinereous, 3 to 6 dm, high, branching from 
base: leaves spatulate-oblong, varying to oblanceolate, not fleshy: spikes 2 to 4 in 
a cluster, filiform, hirsute: flowers very small, barely 2 mm. long.—Southern and 
western Texas. 
7. H. Curassavicum L. Glabrous throughout, diffusely spreading: leaves lance- 
linear or spatulate, succulent: spikes in pairs or twice forked: corolla with limb 
6mm. broad.—Chiefly in saline soils, extending from the Atlantic region through 
Texas and southward. 
*** Fruit 2-lobed, separating into 2-celled 2-seeded carpels, with sometimes a pair of 
empty false cells: style very short: flowers in bractless scorpioid spikes. 
8. H. parviflorum L. More or less pubescent, 3 to 6 dm, high: leaves oblong-ovate 
or ovate-lanceolate, acute or acuminate at both ends, slender-petioled: spikes single 
or in pairs, filiform, 5 to 15 cm. long: tlowers small and crowded, white, 2 nnn. long: 
fruit commonly with no distinctempty cell. (Heliophytum parviflorum DC.)—South- 
ern borders of Texas. 
9. H. glabriusculum Gray. Minutely and sparsely strigulose-pubescent, diffusely 
branching: leaves green and glabrous (exeept the midrib beneath), rather obtuse, 
short-petioled: spikes rather short, solitary or forking: corolla white with green 
eye, about 4 mm.long: fruit pubescent, commonly with 3 empty cells, (Heliophytum 
glabriusculum Torr.)—Southern and western borders of Texas. 
6. ECHINOSPERMUM Lelm. (STICKSEED.) 
Rough-hairy and grayish herbs, with small blue to whitish flowers in 
racemes or spikes, short salverform corolla with throat closed by 5 short 
scales, included stamens, and triangular or compressed erect nutlets 
fixed laterally to the base of the style and with back armed all over or 
with 1 to 3 marginal rows of barbed prickles. 
1. E. Redowskii Lehm., var. occidentale Watson. Hispid erect annuals, 3 to 6 
din, high, at length diffuse: leaves linear, lanceolate, or the lower spatulate: racemes 
leafy-bracteate: calyx becoming foliaceous: nutlets irregularly and minutely sharp- 
tuberculate, the margins armed with a single row of stout flattened prickles some- 
times confluent at base.—Extending from the northern plains into Texas, where also 
occurs Var, CUPULATUM Gray, with prickles of the nutlet broadened and thickened 
below and united into a wing or border which often hardens and enlarges, forming a 
cup with margin more or less incurved at maturity (sometimes only the tips of the 
prickles free), (H. strictum Torr. Mex. Bound., not Ledeb. ) 
