VOL. Iv.] Contributions to Western Botany. 255 
separate, many, an inch or less long, erect except in the first 
stages; anthers yellow, elliptical to oval, and usually obtuse at 
both ends, basifixed, one-half a line or less long, wider after 
bursting, filaments yellow and filiform at apex, white and 
enlarged and scale-like at base; next the ovaries is a sheath of 
sterile filaments which are enlarged throughout, nearly equaling 
the others, lanceolate, ridged, corrugated and white. Ovaries five, 
erect, closely aggregated, linear-cylindric, densely white-pubescent 
_ with glandular hairs up to the glabrous, filiform, persistent styles 
(two to four lines long) which with the ovaries are a trifle 
shorter than the stamens in flower, but the rapid development of 
the ovaries soon thrusts out the styles; stigma very small and 
capitate. At maturity the carpels lengthen to about an inch 
(half an inch in one case) and are linear, straight, but bent 
outwards at tip, cross section obovate, opening along the 
inner side from the oblique tip down, sparsely glandular-hairy, 
reticulated; seeds many, in a single row, horizontal, obliquely 
obovate cylindric, a line long, rounded on the back, with sharp 
inner edge, very black, smooth and shining when fully ripe, but 
_ less mature ones are brown. flowers paniculate, racemose, or 
in one species single, the main stem sending off, usually above 
the middle, three to five branches remotely, each branch being 
subtended by a single leaf, branches a foot or less long, and 
lower half naked while the upper half has one to three flowers 
or rarely is again branched with one to three flowers on 
each branch, flowers terminal and centrifugal (central one 
blooming first). Peduncles usually with leafy bracts at base, and 
central one often with two in the middle, peduncles one to four 
inches long, more or less bent, but erect in fruit, longer than the 
flowers, glandular hairy. Roots perennial, fusiform, thick, with 
many short stout spreading branches at the top which are 
covered and much thickened with closely imbricated and old leaf 
sheaths. Stems tufted, erect, bent at base, tall (except in two 
species), usually leafless below, especially the lower third. 
Leaves with short, ridged sheaths one-fourth to an inch long; 
root leaves biternate (triternate in one species and with petiole 
absent in another), many, petioles long, generally about one-third 
the length of the stems; primary divisions of petiole two to four 
