A NEW SPECIES OF ESENBECKIA. 
T. S. BRANDEGEE. 
(With Plate XII.) 
ESENBECKIA FLAVA. Shrub or small tree, sometimes 7 m. high 
with trunk 15-20 cm. thick; the young branches, panicles and the 
lower surface of the leaves rather densely pubescent with short 
spreading hairs: leaves alternate, broadly elliptic, 7-10 cm. long, 
glandular-punctate usually retuse or emarginate, sparsely pubescent 
above; petioles 10-16 mm. long: flowers in terminal panicles longer 
than the leaves, with pedicels a little longer than the flowers, jointed 
and bracteate at base and bi-bracteolate below the center, 5- 
sometimes 4—merous; calyx and corolla imbricate, the outer surface 
of both pubescent and glandular-punctate; sepals ovate 2 mm. long; 
petals oblong - oval three times as long as the sepals, rotate spread- 
ing: stamens as many as the lobes of the corolla, opposite the sepals 
and inserted beneath the 5-4 lobed disk, at the sinuses; filaments 
triangular-subulate, longer than the calyx-lobes, at length reflexed; 
anthers rounded, versatile, apiculate: ovary densely verrucose-echi- 
nate, surrounded by a broad, pulvinate disk; style stout, cylindrical 
or slightly clavate, the capitate stigma obscurely lobed: fruit de- 
pressed - globose, 3-4 cm. broad, 2 cm. thick, strongly verrucose- 
echinate; loculicidal and incompletely septicidal; endocarp carti- 
laginous, partly separating, the inner portion breaking and remain- 
ing attached to the hilum ; seed large, broader than high, dark 
brown, glandular on the surface with a linear-elliptic aril extending 
from the hilum to the top of the seed ending at the prominence 
marking the place of the minute germ; cotyledons very thick, 
punctate glandular all over, radicle superior in the short axis of the 
seed. 
San José del Cabo, common and extending north on the western 
coast some distance above Todos Santos, on the east as far as La 
Paz. It is called by the inhabitants “ Palo amarillo ”’—yellow tree, 
from the color of the wood, and is often used for poles in the con- 
struction of their houses. The flowers, of a sickish-sweet odor, ap- 
pear in August, and the fruit fallsin December, Dr. Sereno Watson 
Says that it was collected also by Xantus. 
