147 
of water in which they grow, the stems always curve over before 
reaching the surface and never protrude their tops into the air, 
a very unique habit so far as my experience with these aquatics 
goes. The outline of the stem and leaves is comparatively narrow, 
being about 2cm. in breadth. Leaves scattered along the stem or 
in verticils or subverticils of 3s and 6s, pinnately parted, the 
divisions very finely capillary and in five to seven opposite or sub- 
opposite pairs, in the axils of which minute black spines often oc- 
cur. Judging from the specimens furnished, it is dioecious, as I can 
find only pistillate flowers. Petals four, oblong, delicate, purplish 
in color, including four abortive stamens, which have silk-like 
filaments and minute, undeveloped anthers. Styles small, erect, 
plumosely stigmatic at the apex. The fruit is decidedly unlike 
that of IZ. pinnatum except in being scabrate. It is much larger 
than that, being, indeed, the largest of all the known species, 
varying in size from 2mm. to 2% mm. in length by about I mm. 
broad, while MZ. pinnatum has fruit not much over 1 mm. long by 
1% mm. in breadth, The carpels of the latter when fully de- 
veloped are broadly two-winged on the back, the wings close to- 
gether and strongly scabrate or sharply toothed, deeply grooved . 
and smooth or slightly tuberculate between the wings, while 
those of the other have three, sometimes four rough tuberculate 
or slightly toothed ridges, and a comparatively shallow groove 
between them. When the ripe carpels separate, it will be seen 
that one or two of these ridges cross the back and one along each 
margin. Some of the fruits are on short stipes, a peculiarity which 
I have never noticed in 7. pinnatum. 
A new Liatris from North Carolina. 
LIATRIS HELLERI.—Glabrous, with faint traces of pubescence 
on the pedicels and along the bases of the leaves; stem from a 
rootstock irregular in shape, leafy, fifteen or sixteen inches high; 
leaves linear, acuminate, diminishing in size and breadth upward, 
the lowest three lines wide in the middle, not punctate; raceme 
three to four inches long, loose, inclined to droop; heads six 
lines high, on short, slender, ascending pedicels, seven to ten- 
flowered ; bracts of the involucre lax, not appressed, light green, 
with narrow scarious rarely purplish margins, not glandular- 
punctate, oblong-linear, the tips obtuse, or often so doubled in as 
