STANDLEY—TROPICAL AMERICAN PHANEROGAMS, 95 
Iresine heterophylla Standley, sp. nov. 
Iresine celosioides obtusifolia Coulter, Contr. U. S. Nat. Herb. 2: 364. 1894, 
Tresine paniculata obtusifolia Coulter; Uline & Bray, Bot. Gaz. 21: 354. 1896. 
Perennial from long slender branching woody rootstocks; stems herbaceous, stout, 
erect or ascending, solitary or several from a single base, simple up to the inflorescence, 
50 to 100 cm. high, swollen at the nodes, often sulcate, short-villous at the nodes, 
sparsely pubescent elsewhere with very short stout soft hairs, the internodes 1.5 to 10 
cm. long; leaves usually asymmetrical, very variable in outline, the lower ones much 
broader and more obtuse than the upper ones; petioles stout, 2 to 20 mm. long, the 
uppermost leaves usually sessile or subsessile; blades of the lower leaves broadly 
rhombic-ovate, often as broad as long, frequently with fascicles of small leaves in 
the axils, 3 to 6 cm. long, 2 to 4 cm. wide, rounded to acutish, the apex always blunt, 
rounded or abruptly acute at the base and more or less decurrent, thick and firm, 
yellowish green, scabrous or smooth on the upper surface, pubescent beneath along 
the veins with short stiff hairs, scabrous and denticulate on the margins, the veins 
prominent beneath, coarse, the lateral ones diverging at a very acute angle, nearly 
parallel and all extending more than halfway to the margin; blades of the upper 
leaves ovate to narrowly ovate or oval, obtuse or acute, smaller than the lower blades 
but with similar pubescence; inflorescence a narrow, dense, much branched panicle 
15 to 40 cm. long and 3 to 9 cm. broad, the branches erect or ascending, sparsely 
villous; spikelets stout, densely flowered, 4 to 23 mm. long; bracts one-half to one- 
third as long as the sepals, ovate-orbicular, acute, entire; sepals 1 to 1.8 mm. long, 
elliptic-oblong, yellowish white, acuminate to acutish, those of the pistillate flowers 
3-nerved; lobes of the staminal cup broadly rounded; utricle shorter than the sepals; 
seed suborbicular, 0.6 mm. in diameter, dark reddish brown, shining. 
Type in the U.S. National Herbarium, no. 304251, collected near the city of Durango, 
Mexico, in 1896, by Edward Palmer (no. 562). 
ADDITIONAL SPECIMENS EXAMINED: 
Texas: Wright 587. Mexican Boundary Survey 1199. Nealley 231. Uvalde, 
1880, Palmer 1137. ILnndhetmer 1110. Georgetown, 1880, Palmer 1135. 
New Mexico: Gila Hot Springs, 1903, Metcalfe 827 (Herb. N. Y.). 
Arizona: Mule Mountains, 1911, Goodding 1009. 
Sonora: Oputo, 1894, Hartman 2138. 
CuInuAHUA: Candelaria, 1911, Stearns 235. 1885, Palmer 291. Santa Eulalia 
Hills, 1885, Wilkinson. Near Chihuahua, 1885, Pringle 348. 
CoaHuita: 1880, Palmer 1136. Sierra de Paila, 1910, Purpus 5086 (Herb. Univ. 
Calif.). 
The specimens listed above have been referred to Iresine celosioides, but that widely 
dispersed plant is an annual, or essentially so, with all its leaves similar, and the 
sepals of the pistillate flowers obtuse or merely acutish. 
Iresine nitens Standley, sp. nov. 
Erect shrub, sparsely branched, the branches erect, striate, densely and closely 
pilose-sericeous with lustrous silvery white hairs, glabrate in age; petioles 5 to 7 mm. 
long; leaf blades lanceolate or ovate-lanceolate, 2 to 6 cm. long, 5 to 13 mm. wide, 
long-acuminate or acute, acute at the base, thick and firm, when young strigose-pilose 
with lustrous white hairs, soon glabrate, the lateral veins conspicuous, ascending; 
flowers dicecious, paniculate, the panicle on a long naked peduncle, very narrow, 
elongate, the simple primary branches very short, the spikelets elongate, mostly 
sessile, the rachis densely lanate; bracts and bractlets of the pistillate flowers equaling 
the sepals, ovate or ovate-oblong, acute or acuminate, hyaline, stramineous or fuscous, 
glabrous, the sepals narrowly lanceolate, 2 mm. long, long-attenuate, 3-nerved, 
densely lanate, the long soft hairs brownish; style nearly as long as the ovary, the 
stigmas short, slender; utricle oblong, acute; seed 1 mm. long, yellowish brown, 
shining. 
