Bicknell: Studies in Sisyrinchium 607 



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mostly purplish-tinged ; tufts not fibrous at base ; roots slender 

 and wiry. Leaves 1.5-3 ^^^- ^^'i^^, close-striate, stiff, tapering to 

 an acute point, the edges, like those of the stem^ mostly serrulate- 

 roughened : stem simple or frequently developing a node with a 

 prominent erect leaf and two peduncles, 1-2.5 mm. wide, the wings 

 <listinctly striate : spathcs erect, the base narrowed downwards on 

 the sides of the stem, the wings passing up on either side ;_bracts 

 and lower part of bracteal leaf closely roughened all over with mi- 

 nute points, often prominently striate: outer bract much prolonged 

 beyond the inner in simple stems, little surpassing it when the stem 

 is branched, 2.5-5 cm. long, very acute, the narrowly hyaline mar- 

 gins not united below ; inner bract narrow, 17-20 mm. long, often 

 scarious and abruptly pointed at the apex : flowers pale blue, 

 10-12 mm. long ; stamineal column about 5 mm. high : capsules 

 on very delicate, slenderly exsertcd, subspreading pedicels, pale, 

 apparently subglobose and about 3 mm. high, but not fully ma- 

 ture in the specimens examined. 



Washington, D. C, to Georgia, flowering in May. 



Washington, D. C, May 11, 1884, U. S. Nat. Herb. 



North Carolina: Raleigh, May, 1896, hillsides, W. W. 

 Ashe, Type ; Chapel Hill, W. W. Ashe. , 



Georgia : A. W. Chapman in Herb. Torr. Bot. Club. 



Apparently nearest to S.. intermedium and 5. mucronatum, but 

 as compared with both much paler and more glaucous with 

 5tiffer more striate leaves and stem and scabrcUous bracts. The 

 roughened bracts have much the appearance of those of the twin- 

 spathcd S. scabrellum or of extreme forms of the more western S. 

 campcstre. The latter is a lower more slender species, with always 

 simple stems, the inner bract emerging from the outer one more 

 abruptly and at a point much nearer the less narrowed base of the 



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spathe. 



Sisyrinchium Asheianum 



Caespitose in close tufts, 20-30 cm. high, not fibrillose-coated 

 - at base, pale green and glaucescent, the leaf sheathes and spathes 

 purplish to deep wine -purple ; leaves half the height of the stem 

 or longer, erect, 0. 5-1.5 mm. wide, close-.striate, smooth or some- 

 times roughened, tapering to a hardened acute or obtusely pointed 

 tip : stems mostly about i mm. wide, the margins distinctly few- 

 5triate, the edges smooth or denticulate: spathes twin, or even 

 three together, or in reduced stems sometimes solitary, sessile at 

 the top of the stem and subtended by an erect bracteal leaf 2-6 cm. 



