PITTIER—-PLANTS FROM COLOMBIA AND CENTRAL AMERICA. 175 
Pistillate flowers larger, on glabrous pedicels 25 to 35 mm, long, these capillary, but 
thickening slightly just below the flower. Perianth 6-partite, reddish or purplish, 
glabrous, with ovate divisions about 5 mm. long, rounded at tip and each marked with 
3 dark, branched veins. Disk cupuliform, rather broad, obscurely 6-lobate.  Pistil 
glabrous, 5 to 6 mm. long; ovary subglobose, 3-locular, and surmounted by a style 
first forming a short (about 1.5 mm.) column, and then dividing into generally 3 or 
sometimes only 2, or again very rarely 4 branches, each ending in a subflabellate, 
crenate-lobate, deep purple stigma. 
“Capsule of the size of a pea, 3-coccous, depressed-globose, 6-sulcate, smooth, 
brownish, inclosed in the persistent, subequal perianth and crowned by the style; 
cells 2-spermous. Seeds triangulate, longitudinally striate, glabrous, brownish.’’@ 
Bitoncd, in Moras Valley, in the Central Cordillera of Colombia, at an altitude of 
2.500 m. above sea level, H. Pittier, no. 1322, flowers, February 3, 1906 (U. 8. National 
Herbarium nos. 531520 and 531521). It grows in clusters around houses and if not 
semicultivated is at least tolerated on account of its uses. 
General distribution, Andes of Ecuador, Colombia, and Venezuela. 
Local names, tefidero; Paez language, Sal. 
Although this interesting species has been thoroughly described by several authors 
besides the original, I venture here to give a new description based on the specimens 
mentioned above, except for the characters of the seeds,-which I have not seen. 
This plant, along with the several species of Castilla, belongs to that imperfectly 
known series of tropical trees which, besides the usual ramification, bear other append- 
ages that come midway between a branchlet and a leaf, and that may be called either 
pseudo-branchlets or pseudo-leaves. Asa matter of fact they are more like compound 
leaves, and in Phyllanthus salviacfolius they even show at their base stipule-like 
scales; to make the likeness greater it may be added that they are shed once a year, 
like the true leaves in deciduous trees, But on the other hand, their insertion on the 
limbs of the tree seems to be more tike the insertion of a true branchlet, and in the 
axils of their leaflets they bear the inflorescences, thus playing the role of true branch- 
lets. This peculiarity seems to have been first observed on the Castilloa of the Isthmus 
of Panama, by Robert Cross, who claims to have noticed the same phenomenon on 
several other tropical trees. It would be interesting to make a list of these and on 
that account the attention of future collectors is called to that striking feature of 
tropical vegetation. 
As the styles are usually trifid, only occasionally bifid, and very seldom quadrifid, 
Phyllanthus salviaefolius should perhaps not come under Series I], but under Series I, 
in the systematic arrangement as given by Pax in the Pflanzenfamilien.6 More- 
over, the dehiscence of the anther cells is not transverse, but clearly longitudinal, as 
already stated by Bonpland and Kunth. 
The Paez Indians, in the mountainous valleys surrounding the Paéramo de Moras, 
in the Central Cordillera of Colombia, use the decoction of the leaves to dye the wool 
of their sheep, which they use for their clothing. The black color thus obtained is 
said to be firm and lasting. 
Myginda eucymosa Loesener & Pittier, sp. nov. Pirate XVIII. 
A small tree 2 to’5 meters high, with dichotomous, erect ramification. Flowering 
branchlets slender, flattened at the ends, glabrous. 
Leaves petiolate, glabrous, opposite, each pair set at right angles with the adjoining 
pairs. Petioles about 5 mm. long, canaliculate. Leaf blades 4.5 to 7.5 em. long, 2 to 
4 cm. broad, elliptic-ovate to ovate-oblong, broadly cuneate, acuminate, dark green 
above, paler beneath; main and secondary veins slightly prominent on lower face; 
margin obscurely revolute, obsoletely serrulate with very minute, caducous, appressed, 
nigrescent teeth. 
Inflorescence distinctly cymose and profusely ramified, solitary, axillary, and not 
quite as long as the leaves or much shorter. Bracts narrow and acute, opposite, 
oH. Be K, | loc. cit. b Enel. ‘& Prantl, Planzenfam. 3°: 18-23, 1890. 
