Bickxell: Studies in SISVRIXCHIU^[ 



227 



plant, 1-1.5 mni. wide, cuspidate -acute, with somewhat thickened 

 corneous tips, rather strongly but not very closely striate-nerved, 

 serrulate : stems rather loosely erect, about the width of the leaves, 

 distinctly wing-margined, denticuhite-serrulate, bearing two or three 

 erect peduncles at the top and sometimes an ascending branch 

 lower down; pedunccs approximate, 3-7 cm. long, their margins 

 serrulate to smooth: spathes mostly erect, 13-15 mm. long, the 

 bracts rather sharply keeled to the apex, the outer one stiffly acute, 

 slightly hyaline-margined below and clasping for 1-4 mm. at base, 

 slightly surpassing the inner, wdiich is scarious- obtuse at the apex 

 and apiculate ; flowers 5-8, blue, apparently of medium size ; cap- 

 sules on exsertcd pedicels 15-18 mm. long, 3-5 mm. high, trig- 

 onous-obovoid or somewhat pyriform, mucronulate, thick-wallcd, 

 brown, minutely rugulose : seeds irregularly subglobose- and 

 bluntly angled, 1-1.25 mm. in diameter, faintly rugulose- pitted, 

 obscurely umbilicate. 



Southeast Florida ; Miami, Dade County, Charles L. Pollard 

 and G. N. Collins, April 4-7, 1898 ; Plants of subtropical Florida, 

 no. 264; last flowers and mature fruit. 



Sisyrinchium scoparium 



Pale green and glaucous, growing in close tufts fibrose at base, 

 from contracted rootstocks and rather coarsely fibrous roots, 15-50 

 cm. high. Leaves erect and very slender, equaling the shorter stems 

 of the tufts but much shorter than the longer ones, 1 mm. or less to 

 1.75 mm. wide, very acute, the edges sometimes obscurely rough- 



ened ; stems equally narrow with the leaves, very smooth, the striate 

 wing-margins sometimes obscurely roughened above on the edges ; 

 inflorescence when well-developed appearing somewhat flabellately 

 short -branched from two often approximate nodes of the stem, the 

 lower node bearing one or two short, slender peduncles, the upper 

 one two or three shorter peduncles ; the peduncles and short branch 

 all slightly diverging ;. bracteal leaves slender, rarely surpassing 

 the spathes : peduncles 2-5 mm. long or the lower ones longer, 

 denticulate on the margins ; sometimes the stems bear but one node 

 and two short peduncles; spathes erect, 12-18 mm. long, the 

 bracts rather strongly close-striate, acuminate, subequal, the tips 

 finally spreading ; outer one narrowly hyaline-margined below, 

 clasping for 2-5 mm. ; interior scales about three quarters the 

 length of the bracts ; flowers 6-1 1, violet blue ; perianth apparently 

 with rather narrow segments, about 10 mm. long ; capsules clus- 

 tered on fascicled distinctly margined pedicels 14-20 mm. long, 

 somewhat obovate or oblong-subglobose, 2-5 mm. high, thick- 



walled and drying dark, remaining slightly puberulentat maturity : 

 seeds globose, black, finely pitted, i mm. in diameter. 



